List of human-based units of measurement

Lichas - thumb length

This is a list of units of measurement based on human body parts or the attributes and abilities of humans (anthropometric units). 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.[1]

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

Arms

Feet

Fingers

Forearms

  • Pygmē - distance from elbow to base of fingers

Hands

  • Hand - breadth of a human hand
    • Fistmele - the measure of a clenched hand with the thumb extended
    • Shaftment - width of the fist and outstretched thumb
    • 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

Inches

  • Inch - width of the thumb (by some definitions)

Paces

  • Pace - a full stride, from heel to heel

Palms

Outstretched arms

  • Fathom - the distance between the fingertips of a human's outstretched arms
    • Ald - the distance between a man's outstretched arms
    • Klafter - German measure of outstretched hands
    • Orgyia - Ancient Greek fathom
    • Sazhen - Russian fathom

Walking distances

  • League - the distance a person can walk in an hour (by one definition)
  • Parasang - the distance an infantryman could march in a predefined period of time

Others

  • Smoot - a humorous unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity pledge

Loudness

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.[2]

Miscellaneous

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kaaronen, Roope; Manninen, Mikael; Eronen, Jussi (2023). "Body-based units of measure in cultural evolution". Science. 380 (6648): 948–954. Bibcode:2023Sci...380..948K. doi:10.1126/science.adf1936. PMID 37262170. Retrieved 13 June 2023.
  2. ↑ al-Ra'id Arabic Dictionary [in Arabic]. "حثي". Almaany.com (in Arabic). Retrieved 12 November 2025. حثي: مصدر حثى؛ ما غرف باليد من التراب أو نحوه. الجمع : حثيات.
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