inch
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɪnt͡ʃ/
rhymes: -ɪntʃ
Forms: form: inches
form: inch
form: ″
form: in
form: in.
Etymology: From Middle English ynche, enche, from Old English ynċe, borrowed from Latin uncia (“Roman inch, various similar units”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *óynos (“one”). Cognate with Middle Dutch enke (“thumb, thumb's width, inch”). Doublet of ounce, uncia, onça, onza, oka, ouguiya, and awqiyyah.
Senses: examples: text: The sledges of the Esquimaux are of large size, varying from six and a half to nine and even eleven feet in length, and from eighteen inches to two feet in breadth.
ref: 1873, Charles Tomlinson, chapter III, in Winter in the Arctic Regions and Summer in the Antarctic Regions, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, →OCLC, page 122:
text: The term "precision measurement" […] refers to the art of reproducing and controlling dimensions expressed in thousandths of an inch or smaller.
ref: 1939, The Department of Education of International Business Machines Corporation, chapter I, in Precision Measurement in the Metal Working Industry, first paperback binding edition, Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, published 1978, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 1:
text: He describes the operation thus: "The heavy ram employed to impart the finishing strokes, hoisted up with double purchase and snail's pace to the summit of the Piling Engine, and then falling down like a thunderbolt on the head of the devoted timber, driving it perhaps a single half inch in to the stratum below, is well calculated to put to the test the virtue of patience, while it illustrates the old adage of—slow and sure."
ref: 1952 July, W. R. Watson, “Sankey Viaduct and Embankment”, in Railway Magazine, page 487:
glosses: An English unit of length equal to 1/12 of a foot or 2.54 cm, conceived as roughly the width of a thumb.
examples: text: Don't move an inch!
text: Beldame, I think we watched you at an inch.
ref: 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv]:
text: [B]e the consequences what they may, they shall not move an inch, nor a hair's-breadth from the ground of their groundless spiritual independence, […]
ref: 1840, Lewis Rose, chapter III, in An Humble Attempt to Put an End to the Present Divisions in the Church of Scotland, and to Promote Her Usefulness. […] , Glasgow: George Gallie, →OCLC, page 51:
glosses: Any very short distance.
glosses: Any of various similar units of length in other traditional systems of measurement.
examples: text: Let us consider what one inch of rain really means. If an acre of land were covered with water to the depth of only the tenth part of an inch, that layer of water would weigh more than 10 tons: thus 1 inch of rain is ten times that amount—in fact, very nearly 101 tons.
ref: 1880, Arthur Herbert Church, Food: Some Account of Its Sources, Constituents and Uses, London: Chapman and Hall, page 14:
topics: climatology
meteorology
natural-sciences
glosses: A depth of one inch on the ground, used as a measurement of rainfall.
glosses: A depth of one inch in a glass, used as a rough measurement of alcoholic beverages.
Derived terms: acre-inch
a mile wide and an inch deep
Big Inch
budge an inch
characters per inch
column inch
cubic inch
dots per inch
every inch
give an inch
give someone an inch and someone will take a mile
give them an inch and they'll take a mile
give them an inch and they'll take an ell
half-inch
half inch
Inchbonnie
inch by inch
incher
inchful
inchlong
inchmeal
inch-perfect
inch stuff
inch tracker
inchwide
in for an inch, in for a mile
Little Big Inch
metric inch
microinch
miner's inch
pixels per inch
pyramid inch
slinch
square inch
twelve-inch
united inch
within an inch of one's life
within an inch of one's skin