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The eighth of a yard (4.5 inches) was sometimes called a finger, [63] but was more commonly referred to simply as an eighth of a yard, while the half-yard (18 inches) was called "half a yard". [64] Other units related to the yard, but not specific to cloth measurement: two yards are a fathom, a quarter of a yard (when not referring to cloth) is ...
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)
In 1866, the U.S. Congress passed a law that allowed, but did not require, the use of the metric system in trade and commerce. Included in the law was a table of conversion factors between the customary (i.e. English-derived) and metric units, among them a definition of the meter in terms of the yard, and the kilogram in terms of the pound.
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.
Metric units are units based on the metre, gram or second and decimal (power of ten) multiples or sub-multiples of these. According to Schadow and McDonald, [ 1 ] metric units, in general, are those units "defined 'in the spirit' of the metric system, that emerged in late 18th century France and was rapidly adopted by scientists and engineers.
The rod, perch, or pole (sometimes also lug) is a surveyor's tool [1] and unit of length of various historical definitions. In British imperial and US customary units, it is defined as 16 + 1 ⁄ 2 feet, equal to exactly 1 ⁄ 320 of a mile, or 5 + 1 ⁄ 2 yards (a quarter of a surveyor's chain), and is exactly 5.0292 meters.
A fire hydrant marked as 3-inch. The inch (symbol: in or ″) is a unit of length in the British Imperial and the United States customary systems of measurement.It is equal to 1 / 36 yard or 1 / 12 of a foot.
Two wooden yardsticks with brass ends, in inches and division of yard for half, quarter, eighth and sixteenth A folding metre-stick carpenter's ruler with millimetre divisions and numbers in centimetres. Fully extended it measures 2 metres. In countries in which the metric system is used, the scale typically contains only a metric scale.