Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Origin:
The English word ‘inch’ comes from Latin ‘uncia’ meaning "one twelfth part" , in this case, one twelfth of a foot. In some other languages, the word for "inch" is similar to or the same as the word for "thumb"; for example, French: pouce inch/thumb; Italian: pollice inch/thumb; Spanish: pulgada inch, pulgar thumb; Portuguese: polegada inch, polegar thumb; Swedish: tum inch, tumme thumb; Danish: tomme inch, tommel thumb; Dutch: duim inch/thumb; Sanskrit: angulam inch, anguli finger; Slovak: palec inch/thumb; Hungarian: hüvelyk inch/thumb. Given the etymology of the word "inch", it would seem that the inch is a unit derived from the foot, but this was probably only so in Latin and in Roman times. In English, there are records of fairly precise definitions for the size of an inch, so it seems that the foot was then defined as 12 times this length.
Relation to SI unit:
1 inch = 2.54 cm = 0.0254 m
1m = 100 cm = 39.37 inches
God
No ripping