Length
- skrupel – scruple, 1/12 linje or approx. 0.18 mm.
- linje – line, 1/12 tomme or approx. 2.18 mm
- tomme – thumb (inch), 1/12 fot, approx. 26.1 mm. This unit was commonly used for measuring timber until the 1970s. Nowadays, the word refers invariably to the English inch, 25.4 mm.
- kvarter – quarter, 1/4 alen.
- fot – foot, 1/2 alen. From 1824, 313.74 mm.
- alen – forearm or ell, 627.48 mm from 1824, 627.5 mm from 1683, 632.6 mm from 1541. Before that, local variants.
- favn – fathom (pl. favner), 3 alen, 1.882 m.
- stang – rod, 5 alen or 3.1374 m
- lås – 15 favner, 28.2 m
- fjerdingsvei – quarter mile, alt. fjerding, 1/4 mil, i.e. 2.82 km.
- mil or landmil – Norwegian mile, spelled miil prior to 1862, 18,000 alen (36,000 feet, 7.018 miles or 11.295 km). Before 1683, a mil was defined as 17600 alen or 11.13 km. Another old land-mile, 11.824 km. The unit survives to this day, but in a metric 10 km adaptation
- rast –lit. "rest", the old name of the mil. A suitable distance between rests when walking. Believed to be approx. 9 km before 1541.
- Kaffekok, a similar term to rast used in the north by the indigenous Sami people.
- steinkast – stone's throw, perhaps 25 favner, used to this day as a very approximate measure of a short distance.
Read more about this topic: Norwegian Units Of Measurement
Famous quotes containing the word length:
“Nor had I erred in my calculationsnor had I endured in vain. I at length felt that I was free.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (18091849)
“Baltimore lay very near the immense protein factory of Chesapeake Bay, and out of the bay it ate divinely. I well recall the time when prime hard crabs of the channel species, blue in color, at least eight inches in length along the shell, and with snow-white meat almost as firm as soap, were hawked in Hollins Street of Summer mornings at ten cents a dozen.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“What though the traveler tell us of the ruins of Egypt, are we so sick or idle that we must sacrifice our America and today to some mans ill-remembered and indolent story? Carnac and Luxor are but names, or if their skeletons remain, still more desert sand and at length a wave of the Mediterranean Sea are needed to wash away the filth that attaches to their grandeur. Carnac! Carnac! here is Carnac for me. I behold the columns of a larger
and purer temple.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)