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 Roman finger breadth
• Digit - length of a human finger
  • Digitus - Ancient Greek 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

• 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

Miscellaneous

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

See also