List of human-based units of measurement


This is a list of units of measurement based on human body parts or the attributes and 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. A cross-cultural review of body-based measurement systems has found such units to be ubiquitous worldwide.

Area

  • Morgen - the area that one man could plow from morning to noon
  • 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
  • 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 human's outstretched arms
  • Finger
  • Fistmele - the measure of a clenched hand with the thumb extended
  • Gradus - Ancient Roman step
  • Hand - breadth of a human hand
  • Klafter - German measure of outstretched hands
  • League - the distance a person can walk in an hour
  • 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 - a humorous unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity pledge
  • Span - width of a human hand, from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger
  • 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 - 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 - width of the thumb
  • 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
  • Pes - Roman foot
  • Pous - Greek foot

    Loudness

  • Phon
  • Sone

    Mass

  • Picul - the weight a person can carry

    Time

  • Nimesha - the time it takes for a person to blink
  • Paramanu - interval of blinking in humans

    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
  • hathy - Arabic unit for amount of sand or water collected in a one-hand swipe

    Miscellaneous

  • Garn - unit of measure for symptoms resulting from space adaptation syndrome; equal to complete incapacitation; named for Jake Garn