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The term, yard derives from the Old English gerd, gyrd etc., which was used for branches, staves and measuring rods. [5] It is first attested in the late 7th century laws of Ine of Wessex, [6] where the "yard of land" mentioned [6] is the yardland, an old English unit of tax assessment equal to 1 ⁄ 4 hide.
Detail of a cubit rod in the Museo Egizio of Turin The earliest recorded systems of weights and measures originate in the 3rd or 4th millennium BC. Even the very earliest civilizations needed measurement for purposes of agriculture, construction and trade. Early standard units might only have applied to a single community or small region, with every area developing its own standards for ...
The international yard was about two millionths of a meter longer than the imperial yard, while the international pound was about six ten-millionths of a kilogram lighter than the imperial pound. [13] The metric-based international yard and international pound were adopted by the United States National Bureau of Standards effective 1 July 1959.
The imperial and US customary systems of measurement use the SI for their formal definitions, the yard being defined as 0.9144 metres exactly, the pound avoirdupois as 0.453 592 37 kilograms exactly while both systems of measure share the definition of the second.
The main units of length (inch, foot, yard and international mile) were the same in the US, though the US rarely uses some of the intermediate units today, such as the (surveyor's) chain (22 yards) and the furlong (220 yards). At one time, the definition of the nautical mile was based on the surface area of the Clarke ellipsoid.
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 ...
The international yard and pound agreement of July 1959 defined the length of the international yard in the United States and countries of the Commonwealth of Nations as exactly 0.9144 meters. Consequently, since a foot is one third of a yard, the international foot is defined to be equal to exactly 0.3048 meters.
The Compositio redefined the yard, foot, inch, and barleycorn to 10 ⁄ 11 of their previous value. [dubious – discuss] However, it retained the Anglo-Saxon rod of 15 x 11 ⁄ 10 feet (5.03 metres) and the acre of 4 × 40 square rods. Thus, the rod went from 5 old yards to 5 + 1 ⁄ 2 new yards, or 15 old feet to 16 + 1 ⁄ 2 new feet. The ...