Yard

Information about Yard

For other uses, see Yard (disambiguation).

**1 yard** =
SI units
0 m	0 mm
US customary / Imperial units
0 ft	0 in

This derivation of the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci, depicts nine historical units of measurement: the Yard, the Span, the Cubit, the Flemish Ell, the English Ell, the French Ell, the Fathom, the Hand , and the Foot. The Vitruvian man was drawn to scale, so the units depicted are displayed with their proper historical ratios.

A yard (abbreviation: yd) is the name of a unit of length in a number of different systems, including English units, Imperial units, and United States customary units. Its size can vary from system to system. The most commonly used yard today is the international yard which by definition is equal to 0.9144 metre.

The yard is used as the standard unit of field length measurement in both the American and Canadian games of football (although Canada has officially adopted the metric system).

A corresponding unit of area is the square yard.

Yard is also a slang word, used particularly in currency trading, for one billion units of a currency, e.g., a yard of dollars is $1bn, thus a buyer of a billion dollars could say "I'm a buyer of a yard of dollars."^[1]

Equivalence to other units of length

1 international yard is equal to:

8.2 ganton
0.5 fathom (1 fathom is equal to 2 yards)
3 feet (1 foot is a third of a yard)
36 inches
0.9144 metre (1 metre is equal to about 1.0936 international yards)

The early yard was divided by the binary method into two, four, eight, and sixteen parts called the half-yard, span, finger, and nail. Two yards are a fathom.

Etalons on the wall of Royal Observatory Greenwich, London, Great Britain depicting length measures - 1 yard (3 feet), 2 feet, 1 foot, 6 inches (1/2 foot), and 1 inch.

Historical origin

The yard derives its name from the word for a straight branch or rod, rather the kind used for punishment or spanking young children, although the precise origin of the measure is not definitely known. Some believe it derived from the double cubit, or that it originated from cubic measure, others from its near equivalents, like the length of a stride or pace. One postulate was that the yard was derived from the girth of a person's waist, while another claim held that the measure was invented by Henry I of England as being the distance between the tip of his nose and the end of his thumb. These are believed to be more likely standardising events than inventing of the measure.

References

1. ^ Bloomberg.com: Financial Glossary

U.S. customary units, also known in the United States as English units^[1] (but see English unit) or standard units, are units of measurement that are currently used in the USA, in some cases alongside units from SI (the International System of Units
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Imperial units or the Imperial system is a collection of units, first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824, later refined (until 1959) and reduced.
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1 foot =
SI units
0 m 0 mm
US customary / Imperial units
0 yd 0 in

A foot (plural: feet or foot;^[1] symbol or abbreviation: ft or, sometimes, ′
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1 inch =
SI units
010⁻³ m 0 mm
US customary / Imperial units
010⁻³ ft 010⁻³ yd

An inch (plural: inches; symbol or abbreviation: in or, sometimes,
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units of measurement have played a crucial role in human endeavour from early ages up to this day. Disparate systems of measurement used to be very common. Now there is a global standard, the International System (SI) of units, the modern form of the metric system.
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Length is the long dimension of any object. The length of a thing is the distance between its ends, its linear extent as measured from end to end. This may be distinguished from height, which is vertical extent, and width or breadth
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English unit is the American name for a unit in one of a number of systems of units of measurement, some obsolete, and some still in use. In spite of the name, it does not necessarily refer to the (non-SI) system of units still in widespread, but mostly unofficial, use in England
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1 metre =
SI units
1000 mm 0 cm
US customary / Imperial units
0 ft 0 in

The metre or meter^[1](symbol: m) is the fundamental unit of length in the International System of Units (SI).
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American football, known in the United States simply as football ^[1] is a competitive team sport known for its physical roughness despite being a highly strategic game.
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Canadian football is a form of football played chiefly in Canada in which two teams of twelve players each compete for territorial control of a field of play 110 yards (100.6 m) long and 65 yards (59.
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Football is the name given to a number of different team sports. The most popular of these world-wide is association football (also known as soccer). The English word "football" is also applied to American football (also known as gridiron), Australian rules football, Canadian
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Metrication (or metrification) refers to the introduction of the SI metric system as the international standard for physical measurements—a long-term series of independent and systematic conversions from the various separate local systems of weights and measures.
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Area is a physical quantity expressing the size of a part of a surface. The term Surface area is the summation of the areas of the exposed sides of an object.

Units

Units for measuring surface area include:

square metre = SI derived unit

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The square yard is an imperial/US customary (non-metric) unit of area, formerly used in most of the English-speaking world but now generally replaced by the square metre outside of the US.
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1 fathom =
SI units
0 m 0 cm
US customary / Imperial units
0 ft 0 in

A fathom is a unit of length in the Imperial system (and the derived U.S. customary units).
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