List of human-based units of measure
This is a list of units of measure based on human body parts or the attributes or abilities of humans. It does not include derived units further unless they are also themselves human-based. These units are thus considered to be human scale and anthropocentric.
Area
- Quinaria - the cross-sectional area of a pipe created from a flat sheet of lead 5 digits wide
- Stremma - the amount of land a person can plow in a day
Length
- Ald - the distance between a man's outstretched arms
- Assbā - Arabic finger
- Beard-second - the length a beard grows in a second
- Condylos - middle joint of finger
- Cun - width of the human thumb, at the knuckle
- Dactylos - Ancient Greek finger breadth
- Digit - length of a human finger
- Digitus - Ancient Roman digit
- Etzba - fingerbreadth
- Fathom - the distance between the fingertips of a man's outstretched arms
- Finger
- Fistmele - the measure of a clenched hand with the thumb extended
- Gradus - Ancient Roman step
- Hand - breadth of a male human hand
- League - the distance a person can walk in an hour (by one definition)
- Lichas - thumb length
- Orgyia - Ancient Greek fathom
- Parasang - the distance an infantryman could march in a predefined period of time
- Pygmē - distance from elbow to base of fingers
- Sazhen - Russian fathom
- Shaftment - width of the fist and outstretched thumb
- Smoot - Oliver R. Smoot's height in October 1958
- Span - width of a human hand, from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the pinky
- Spithamē - Ancient Greek span
- Zeret - Biblical span
Paces
- Haploun bēma - Ancient Greek single pace
- Orgye - Arabic pace
- Pace - a full stride, from heel to heel
- Passus - the pace step of a single legionary
Ells
- Ell
- Ell (Scots) - length of an average person's arm
- Elle - German ell
- Amah - Biblical ell
Cubits
- Arsh - Arabic cubit
- Cubit - length of the human forearm
- Macedonian cubit
- Cubitus - Ancient Roman cubit
- Pēchys - Ancient Greek cubit
Palms
- Cabda - Arabic palm
- Chetvert/Piad - Russian span/palm
- Palaistē/dōron - Ancient Greek palm
- Palm - breadth of four fingers
- Palmus - Ancient Roman palm
- Tefah/Tefach - Biblical palm
Inches
- Duym - Tatar thumb/inch
- Inch - length of the thumb (by some definitions)
- Uncia - Roman inch
- Zoll - German inch
Feet
- Foot - length of the human foot
- Arabic foot
- Fuß - German foot
- Russian fut - Russian foot
- Tatar fut - Tatar foot
- Klafter - German foot
- Pes - Roman foot
- Pous - Greek foot
Loudness
Mass
- Picul - the weight a person can carry
Time
Volume
- Choenix - a man's daily grain ration
- Finger tip unit
- Koku - the amount of rice needed to feed a person for a year
- Japanese masu - the amount of rice needed to feed a person for a day
Miscellaneous
- Garn - unit of measure for symptoms resulting from space adaptation syndrome; equal to complete incapacitation; named for Jake Garn
See also
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 7/11/2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.