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The quarter of a yard (9 inches) was known as the "quarter" without further qualification, while the sixteenth of a yard (2.25 inches) was called a nail. [62] 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 ...
Under the 1300 Composition of Yards and Perches, one of the statutes of uncertain date that was notionally in force until the 1824 Weights and Measures Act, "3 barly cornes dry and rounde" [2] [3] were to serve as the basis for the inch and thence the larger units of feet, yards, perches and thus of the acre, an important unit of area.
An oak rod from the Iron Age fortified settlement at Borre Fen measured 53.15 inches (135.0 cm) with marks dividing it up into eight parts of 6.64 inches (16.9 cm). Euan Mackie referred to five-eighths of this rod 33.2 inches (84 cm) as "very close to a megalithic yard". [10]
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 England, the ell was usually exactly 45 in (1.143 m), or a yard and a quarter. It was mainly used in the tailoring business but is now obsolete. Although the exact length was never defined in English law, standards were kept; the brass ell examined at the Exchequer by Graham in the 1740s had been in use "since the time of Queen Elizabeth".
At some time a value of 33 inches (838.2 mm) was adopted in California. [citation needed] In Texas, a vara was defined as 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 inches (846.67 mm), or 1 yard = 1.08 vara. [citation needed] The vara and the corresponding unit of area, the square vara, were introduced in the 19th century to measure Spanish land grants.
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By 1935, industry in 16 countries had adopted the "industrial inch" as it came to be known. [8] [9] In 1946, the British Commonwealth Scientific Conference recommended that members of the British Commonwealth adopt the inch as exactly 25.4 mm, and the 36-inch yard as exactly 0.9144 meters.