Hair's breadth

A hair's breadth, or the width of human hair, is used as an informal unit of a very short length.[1] It connotes "a very small margin" or the narrowest degree in many contexts.[2][3][4][5][6][7]

Scanning electron microscope image of a human hair

Definitions

This measurement is not precise because human hair varies in diameter, ranging anywhere from 17 μm to 181 μm.[8] One nominal value often chosen is 75 μm,[5] but this – like other measures based upon such highly variable natural objects, including the barleycorn[9] – is subject to a fair degree of imprecision.[5][7]

Such measures can be found in many cultures. The English "hair's breadth"[6] has a direct analogue in the formal Burmese system of Long Measure. A "tshan khyee", the smallest unit in the system, is literally a "hair's breadth". 10 "tshan khyee" form a "hnan" (a Sesamum seed), 60 (6 hnan) form a mooyau (a species of grain), and 240 (4 mooyau) form an "atheet" (literally, a "finger's breadth").[10][11]

Some formal definitions even existed in English. In several systems of English Long Measure, a "hair's breadth" has a formal definition. Samuel Maunder's Treasury of Knowledge and Library of Reference, published in 1855, states that a "hair's breadth" is one 48th of an inch (and thus one 16th of a barleycorn).[12] John Lindley's An introduction to botany, published in 1839, and William Withering' An Arrangement of British Plants, published in 1818, states that a "hair's breadth" is one 12th of a line, which is one 144th of an inch (a line itself being one 12th of an inch).[13][14]

Other body part measurements

Winning a competition, such as a horse race, "by a whisker" (a short beard hair) is a narrower margin of victory than winning "by a nose."[15][16] An even narrower anatomically-based margin might be described in the idiom "by the skin of my teeth," which is typically applied to a narrow escape from impending disaster. This is roughly analogous to the idiomatic phrase "as small as the hairs on a gnat's bollock."[17] German speakers similarly use “Muggeseggele,” literally “housefly’s scrotum,” as a small unit of measurement.[18]

See also

• Beard-second
• List of humorous units of measurement
• List of unusual units of measurement
• Indefinite and fictitious numbers

References

Notes

Citations

1. "Hair's breadth (hare's breath)". The Grammarist. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
2. Hairs breadth. Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
3. "Hairs breadth". Macmillan English Dictionary. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
4. "Hairs breadth". Cambridge Dictionary. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
5. Smith 2002, p. 253.
6. Crook & Osmaston 1994, p. 133.
7. Johnson 1842, pp. 1257.
8. Ley, Brian (1999). Elert, Glenn (ed.). "Diameter of a human hair". The Physics Factbook. Retrieved 2018-12-08.
9. Boaz, Tilloch & Taylor 1823, p. 267.
10. Latter 1991, pp. 167.
11. Carey 1814, p. 209.
12. Maunder 1855, p. 12.
13. Lindley 1839, p. 474.
14. Withering 1818, p. 69.
15. "Win by a nose". The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary. Houghton Mifflin Company/Dictionary.com. 2002. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
16. "By a nose". Free Dictionary. Retrieved December 30, 2016.
17. "The meaning and origin of the expression: By the skin of your teeth". The phrase finder. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
18. Sellner, Jan (9 March 2009). "Schönstes schwäbisches Wort: Großer Vorsprung für Schwabens kleinste Einheit". Stuttgarter Nachrichten (in German). Archived from the original on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 13 August 2013.

Sources

• Boaz, James; Tilloch, Alexander, Editor; Taylor, Richard, Editor (1823-03-21). "On a fixed Unit of Measure". Philosophical Magazine. 61. London: Richard Taylor. p. 267.
• Carey, Felix (1814). "Of Weights &c.". A grammar of the Burman language. Mission Press/Internet Archive. p. 209.
• Crook, John; Osmaston, Henry (1994). "Weights and Measures". Himalayan Buddhist Villages. Delhi: Shri Jainendra Press. p. 133. ISBN 978-0862923860.
• Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013). The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. p. 1843. ISBN 9781317372523.
• Dickson, Paul (1994). War Slang: Fighting Words and Phrases of Americans from the Civil War to the Gulf War. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. p. 286. ISBN 0-671-75022-4.
• Dickson, Paul (April 11, 2011). War Slang: American Fighting Words & Phrases Since the Civil War. p. 286. ISBN 9780486477503.
• Dorson, Richard Mercer (1986). Handbook of American Folklore. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 123. ISBN 0-253-20373-2.
• Hales, John (2005). Shooting Polaris a personal survey in the American West. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. p. 45. ISBN 0-8262-1616-1.
• Jillette, Pen (2004). Sock: A Novel. p. 114. ISBN 1429961317.
• Johnson, Cuthbert William (1842). "Weights and Measures". The farmer's encyclopædia, and dictionary of rural affairs. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans/Internet Archive. p. 1257.
• Johnson, Sterling (1995). English as a Second f*cking Language. New York: Saint Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 978-0-312-14329-9.
• Latter, Thomas (1991). "Measures". A Grammar of the Language of Burmah (republished ed.). Asian Educational Services. p. 167. ISBN 9788120606937.
• Lindley, John (1839). "Glossology". An introduction to botany (3rd ed.). London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans. p. 474.
• Maunder, Samuel (1855). "Measures of Length". Treasury of Knowledge and Library of Reference. New York: J. W. Bell. p. 12.\
• McYoung, Mark Animal (1991). Fists, Wits and a Wicked Right:Surviving on the Wild Side of the Street. Boulder, Colorado: Paladin Press. p. 25.
• Michaelis, David (1983). The best of friends: profiles of extraordinary friendships (Print). New York: Morrow. p. 231. ISBN 0-688-01558-1.
• Morton, Mark S. (2003). The lover's tongue a merry romp through the language of love and sex (Print). Toronto Ontario: Insomniac Press. p. 134. ISBN 1-894663-51-9.
• Partridge, Eric; Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry (2008). The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (Print). London New York: Routledge. pp. 535, 1596 & 1601. ISBN 0-415-21259-6.
• Raudaskoski, Heikki (January 1997). 'The Feathery Rilke Mustaches and Porky Pig Tattoo on Stomach': High and Low Pressures in Gravity's Rainbow. Postmodern Culture. 7. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
• Smith, Graham T. (2002). Industrial metrology. Springer. pp. 253. ISBN 9781852335076.
• Spelvin, Georgina (2008). The Devil Made Me Do It (Print). Los Angeles, California: Lulu.com, Little Red Hen Books. p. 110. ISBN 0-615-19907-0.
• Withering, William (1818). "Botanical Terms". An Arrangement of British Plants. 1 (6th ed.). London: Longman & Co., Robert Scholey, et al. p. 69.