Palm (unit) - The English Palm, The Width of The Hand

The English Palm, The Width of The Hand

In English usage, the palm or handsbreadth is generally taken to be three inches. Some confusion between the various types of hand measurement, and particularly between the hand and the handsbreadth, appears to have persisted in Britain for several centuries after the hand was standardised at four inches by a statute of King Henry VIII in 1541. Phillips's dictionary of 1706 gives four inches for the length of the handful or hand, but three inches for the handsbreadth; Mortimer gives the same, three inches for the Hand's-breadth, and four for the "Handful, or simply, Hand", but adds

"The hand among horse-dealers, &c. is four-fingers' breadth, being the fist clenched, whereby the height of a horse is measured"

thus equating "hand" with both the palm and the fist. Similarly, Wright's 1831 translation of Buffon mentions "A hand breadth (palmus), the breadth of the four fingers of the hand, or three inches", but the Encyclopædia Perthensis of 1816 gives under Palm (4): "A hand, or measure of lengths comprising three inches".

In English measurements, the handsbreadth has mostly fallen out of use.