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In the epic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Green Knight's axe-head was an ell (45 inches) wide. [15] Ells were also used in the medieval French play The Farce of Master Pathelin to measure the size of the clothing Pierre Pathelin bought. [16] Ells are used for measuring the length of rope in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. [17]
The hand is a non-SI unit of length equal to exactly 4 inches (101.6 mm). It is normally used to measure the height of horses in some English-speaking countries, including Australia, [4] Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The basic unit of length in the imperial and U.S. customary systems is the yard, defined as exactly 0.9144 m by international treaty in 1959. [2] [5] Common imperial units and U.S. customary units of length include: [6] thou or mil (1 ⁄ 1000 of an inch) inch (25.4 mm) foot (12 inches, 0.3048 m) yard (3 feet, 0.9144 m)
Rood – a unit of area or length; Sack – originally a medieval unit of mass, equal to 26 stone (364 pounds, or about 165 kg). Since a unit of dry volume, equal to 24 imperial gallons (about 109 liters). Schoenus – a unit of area or length; Scrupulum – a unit of area, mass, or time; Seam – a unit of mass or volume; Seer – a unit of ...
From fingertip of outstretched arm to opposite shoulder, 20 nails = 1 + 1 ⁄ 4 yard or 45 inches. Mostly for measuring cloth. Fathom: 1.829 m: 6 feet, distance between arms outstretched, from fingertip to fingertip, on a 6-foot-tall person. Rod: 5 m: Also called a perch or pole: a measure used for surveying land and in architecture.
The unit is used to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge. Canonically, and originally, in 1958 when Smoot was a Lambda Chi Alpha pledge at MIT (class of 1962), the bridge was measured to be 364.4 Smoots, plus or minus one ear, using Mr. Smoot himself as a ruler. [17] At the time, Smoot was 5 feet, 7 inches, or 170 cm, tall. [18]
17.6 μm – one twip, a unit of length in typography; 10 to 55 μm – width of wool fibre [92] 25.4 μm – 1/1,000 inch, commonly referred to as 1 mil in the U.S. and 1 thou in the UK; 30 μm – length of a human skin cell; 30.8568 μm – 1 zeptoparsec; 50 μm – typical length of Euglena gracilis, a flagellate protist [95]
For measuring length, the U.S. customary system uses the inch, foot, yard, and mile, which are the only four customary length measurements in everyday use. From 1893, the foot was legally defined as exactly 1200 ⁄ 3937 m (approximately 0.304 8006 m). [13] Since July 1, 1959, the units of length have been defined on the basis of 1 yd = 0.9144 ...