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In addition to the yardland, Old and Middle English both used their forms of "yard" to denote the surveying lengths of 15 feet (4.6 m) or 16.5 feet (5.0 m), used in computing acres, a distance now usually known as the "rod". [5] A unit of three English feet is attested in a statute of c. 1300 , but there it is called an ell (ulna, lit.
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.
Although most contemporary accounts used an Arabic mile of 6 444 feet (1,964 metres), which gave a Spanish league of the degree of 25,776 feet (7,857 metres or 4.242 modern nautical miles) others defined an Arabic mile as just 6,000 feet making a Spanish league of the degree 24,000 feet (or 7,315 metres, almost exactly 3.95 modern nautical miles).
An adult human foot is about 28 cm (11 in) long. The decimetre ( SI symbol: dm ) is a unit of length in the metric system equal to 10 −1 metres ( 1 / 10 m = 0.1 m ). To help compare different orders of magnitude , this section lists lengths between 10 centimeters and 100 centimeters (10 −1 meter and 1 meter).
One link is a hundredth part of a chain, which is 7.92 inches (20.1168 cm). [7] The surveyor's chain first appears in an illustration in a Dutch map of 1607, [8] and in an English book for surveyors of 1610. [9] In 1593 the English mile was redefined by a statute of Queen Elizabeth I as 5,280 feet, to tie in with agricultural practice.
The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of length; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English feet, or 1,760 yards.
A board foot is a United States and Canadian unit of approximate volume, used for lumber. It is equivalent to 1 inch × 1 foot × 1 foot (144 cu in or 2,360 cm 3). It is also found in the unit of density pounds per board foot. In Australia and New Zealand the terms super foot or superficial foot were formerly used for this unit. The exact ...
The Egyptian equivalent of the foot—a measure of four palms or 16 digits—was known as the djeser and has been reconstructed as about 30 cm (11.8 in). The Greek foot (πούς, pous) had a length of 1 / 600 of a stadion, [12] one stadion being about 181.2 m (594 ft); [13] therefore a foot was, at the time, about 302 mm (11.9 in). Its ...