How to pronounce "miracle"?

I ask this because I recently had a debate with my family about how to pronounce this word, miracle. They said it was pronounced with the "mir" in miracle the same way "mir" is in mirror. (/ˈmɪɹəkəl/).

Whereas I said the "mir" was pronounced like "mer" in merry (/ˈmɛɹəkəl/). So, I consulted an online dictionary to prove my point, and the pronunciation guide clearly showed their way of saying miracle, but the spoken pronunciation to my ear clearly was saying it the way I thought it should be said, though they heard it their way.

So, I looked again and found this dictionary that has the pronunciation spelled out their way, but the UK vocal pronunciation clearly sounds like my way, while the US pronunciation clearly sounds like theirs.

Meanwhile, these dictionaries have pronunciation spelled out their way, but the accompanying vocal pronunciation widget clearly sounds like my way, though they still say they hear it their way. Example. I'd post more sources, but I need more reputation points. Others have their (my family's) pronunciation spelled out and the vocalization corresponds, but by far the more common scenario is my family's pronunciation being spelled out, but mine being the spoken one.

The only dictionary I've seen that offers the pronunciation guide that I think is correct is Wiktionary (again, can't post link yet), though I'm more skeptical of that source.

So, which is correct? /ˈmɪɹəkəl/ or /ˈmɛɹəkəl/? Or is it just a matter of US vs UK English, and I've unknowingly been using the UK pronunciation (according to Cambridge dictionary) my whole life despite being born and raised in the US?

I say the i in miracle the same as the i in 'tin' and 'miss'. If I'm honest, I have to admit I tend to pronounce the a in the same way.

In my mind's ear, Jimmy Stewart (US actor) says something like "Waal, that would take some kind of merical" in pretty much every movie he's in ;) . For me, i pronounced like the e in 'get' is classic US.

The "standard" pronunciation of miracle that you will see transcribed in any dictionary is with the vowel of mirror or irritate or tyranny (this vowel can be transcribed in various ways: in the International Phonetic Alphabet, it might be /ɪ/ or /i/, and in North American dictionary respelling systems it might be \ĭ\ or even \ē\).

However, I just learned of the Harvard Dialect Survey of American English (2003, by Bert Vaux and Scott Golder, Harvard University Linguistics Department), which actually had a question about the pronunciation of this word. Overall, about 78% of the respondents said they had the vowel of "near" (/iː/) or "kit" (/ɪ/) in this word, but 2.35% said they had the vowel of "net," (/ɛ/) and 15.38% said they had something in between /ɪ/ and /ɛ/. That last figure surprises me, since I had never known about the pronunciation with /ɛ/ before reading this question.

I haven't been able to find out what the situation is in the UK.

Speaking generally, the sound /r/ in English often involves velar or uvular articulations that can affect either the production, or the perception of the preceding vowel. (I'm not a phonetician, so I can't specify the precise phonetic reasons for this.) In American English accents especially, this often causes historically distinct vowel phonemes to merge before /r/.

Dialectal replacement of original /ɪr/ with /ɛr/ has been reported for some other words. It may be what the spelling "sperit" is meant to represent in The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. It is also mentioned, alongside the pin/pen merger, in Some Peculiarities of Speech in Mississippi, by Hubert Anthony Shands (1893).

Some old pronunciation books say that the word panegyric used to be commonly pronounced with /ɛr/ rather than the more regular /ɪr/ (see Walker's Critical Pronouncing Dictionary).

Medica, Dan Bron, and Greg Lee have made it pretty clear in their comments on my question that the more common and most likely correct pronunciation of miracle is /ˈmɪɹəkəl/, where the "mir" in miracle sounds the same as in mirror.

If you are looking for the most likely correct pronunciation of a word, I suggest you check youglish site.

US pronunciation of miracle (1303 results): http://youglish.com/search/miracle/us

UK pronunciation of miracle (105 results): http://youglish.com/search/miracle/uk

ps: you may also check how Obama will tell that by adding hashtag obama to your query.

hope it helps.