List of human-based units of measure

Short description: Wikipedia list article

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 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 (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