go the extra mile
Formsgoes the extra mile, going the extra mile, went the extra mile, gone the extra mile
- 1To make an extra effort, doing more than is required in order to achieve a particularly good result.
Like a host who not only feeds the guests but walks them all the way to their car in the rain.
The nurses on that ward go the extra mile for every patient in their care.
He went the extra mile on the project, staying late to polish every detail before the deadline.
Note
An idiom that may echo the Gospel of Matthew (5:41): "whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain." The second mile is the one nobody demanded. Only go inflects (she went the extra mile; they have gone the extra mile), and a to-infinitive often names the goal, as when Reagan vowed in 1982 to go the extra mile to compromise with Democrats.
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Origin
Possibly from the gospel of Matthew (chapter 5, verse 41): "And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain," meaning to walk a second mile beyond what is required.