List of non-coherent units of measurement
This is a list of units of measurement in active use, which do not form part of a coherent system of measurement. Many of the items listed here are colloquial units based on familiar objects such as parts of the body. Many of the listed units are approximate or vaguely defined. Some are odd multiples or fractions of a base unit.
Length
Ligne
Button sizes are typically measured in ligne, which can be abbreviated as L. The measurement refers to the button diameter, or the largest diameter of irregular button shapes. There are 40 lignes in 1 inch.Vee
In groff/troff and specifically in the included traditional manuscript macro set ms, the vee is a unit of vertical distance often—but not always—corresponding to the height of an ordinary line of text.Horizontal pitch
Horizontal pitch is a unit of length defined by the Eurocard printed circuit board standard used to measure the horizontal width of rack-mounted electronic equipment, similar to the rack unit used to measure vertical heights of rack-mounted equipment. One HP is 0.2 inches or wide.Hammer unit
game engine uses the Hammer unit as its base unit of length. This unit refers to Source's official map creation software, Hammer. The exact definition varies from game to game, but a Hammer unit is usually defined as sixteenth of a foot relative to the map, or 1 inch or 2.54 centimeters when compared to the average player height. With the sixteenth of a foot definition, this means that 1 Hammer unit is equal to exactly or .Rack unit
One rack unit is and is used to measure rack-mountable audiovisual, computing and industrial equipment. Rack units are typically denoted without a space between the number of units and the 'U'. Thus, a 4U server enclosure is nominally high, or more precisely, built to occupy a vertical space seven inches high, with sufficient clearance to allow movement of adjacent hardware.Hand
The hand is a non-SI unit of length equal to exactly. It is normally used to measure the height of horses in some English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It is customary when measuring in hands to use a point to indicate inches and not tenths of a hand. For example, 15.1 hands normally means 15 hands, 1 inch, rather than hands.Light-nanosecond
The light-nanosecond is defined as exactly 29.9792458 cm. It was popularized in information technology as a unit of distance by Grace Hopper as the distance which a photon could travel in one billionth of a second : "The speed of light is one foot per nanosecond."Metric foot
A metric foot, defined as ), has been used occasionally in the UK but has never been an official unit.The corresponding metric inch of was used for pin spacing in Soviet microchips, which were often cloned from Western designs but scaled down slightly from US customary inches to metric inches. This led to incompatibility issues in the Soviet computer market.
A Chinese foot is around one third of a metre, with the exact definition depending on jurisdiction.
Horse
Horses are used to measure distances in horse racing – a horse length equals roughly. Shorter distances are measured in fractions of a horse length; also common are measurements of a full or fraction of a head, a neck, or a nose.Boat length
In rowing races such as the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, the margin of victory or defeat is expressed in fractions and multiples of boat lengths. The length of a rowing eight is about. This is also commonly expressed in time i.e. 3 or 3.5 seconds. A shorter distance is the canvas, which is the length of the covered part of the boat between the bow and the bow oarsman, and equivalent to less than one second. The Racing Rules of Sailing also makes heavy use of boat lengths.Football field (length)
A football field is often used as a comparative measurement of length when talking about distances that may be hard to comprehend when stated in terms of standard units.An American football field is usually understood to be long, though it is technically when including the two long end zones. The field is wide.
An association football pitch may vary within limits of in length and in width. The recommended field size is for major competitions such as the FIFA World Cup, UEFA European Championship and UEFA Champions League.
A Canadian football field is wide and long, including two long end zones.
Block
In most US cities, a city block is between. In Manhattan, the measurement "block" usually refers to a north–south block, which is. Sometimes people living in places with a regularly spaced street grid will speak of long blocks and short blocks. Within a typical large North American city, it is often only possible to travel along east–west and north–south streets, so travel distance between two points is often given in the number of blocks east–west plus the number north–south.Earth radius
The globally-average radius of Earth, generally given as 6,371 kilometres, is often employed as a unit of measure to intuitively compare objects of planetary size.Lunar distance
, the distance from the centre of Earth to the centre of the Moon, is a unit of measure in astronomy. The lunar distance is approximately, or 1.28 light-seconds; this is roughly 30 times Earth's diameter. A little less than 400 lunar distances make up an astronomical unit.Siriometer
The siriometer is an obsolete astronomical measure equal to one million astronomical units, i.e., one million times the average distance between the Sun and Earth. This distance is equal to about 15.8 light-years, 149.6 Pm, or 4.8 parsecs, and is about twice the distance from Earth to the star Sirius.Area
Barn
One barn is 10−28 square metres, about the cross-sectional area of a uranium nucleus. The name probably derives from early neutron-deflection experiments, when the uranium nucleus was described, and the phrases "big as a barn" and "hit a barn door" were used. Barn are typically used for cross sections in nuclear and particle physics. Additional units include the microbarn and the yoctobarn.Kuang
A kuang is a traditional Chinese unit of area equal to 0.11 square metres or one square Chinese foot.Brass or square
One brass is exactly area. The same word is used, however, for of estimated or supplied loose material, such as sand, gravel, rubble, etc. This unit is prevalent in the construction industry in India.The same area is called a square in the construction industry in North America, and was historically used in Australia by real estate agents. A roof's area may be calculated in square feet, then converted to squares.
Cow's grass
In Ireland, before the 19th century, a "cow's grass" was a measurement used by farmers to indicate the size of their fields. A cow's grass was equal to the amount of land that could produce enough grass to support a cow.Football field (area)
A football pitch, or field, can be used as a man-in-the-street unit of area. The standard FIFA football pitch for international matches is long by wide ; FIFA allows for a variance of up to in length in either direction and more or less in width, which generally results in the association football pitch generally only being used for order of magnitude comparisons.An American football field, including both end zones, is, or . A Canadian football field is wide and long with end zones adding a combined to the length, making it or.
An Australian rules football field may be approximately long goal to goal and wide, although the field's elliptical nature reduces its area to a certain extent. A football field has an area of approximately, twice the area of a Canadian football field and three times that of an American football field.
Morgen
A morgen was approximately the amount of land tillable by one man behind an ox in the morning hours of a day. This was an official unit of measurement in South Africa until the 1970s, and was defined in November 2007 by the South African Law Society as having a conversion factor of 1 morgen =. This unit of measure was also used in the Dutch colonial province of New Netherland.Countries, regions, and cities
The area of a familiar country, state or city is often used as a size reference, especially in journalism. Usually the region is used to describe something of similar size to the reference region, but in some cases such references become common enough that multiples of the area start to be used, as in "twice the area of Wales". Besides Wales, other regions that have been used this way include Belgium, the German state of Saarland, and Washington, D.C..Volume
Metric ounce
A metric ounce is an approximation of the imperial ounce, US dry ounce, or US fluid ounce. These three customary units vary. However, the metric ounce is usually taken as when volume is being measured, or in grams when mass is being measured.The US Food and Drug Administration defines the "food labeling ounce" as, slightly larger than the fluid ounce.
Several Dutch units of measurement have been replaced with informal metric equivalents, including the ons or ounce. It originally meant of a pound, or a little over depending on which definition of the pound was used, but was redefined as when the country metricated.