Inch

the twelfth part of a foot. Inch is another form of ounce, the twelfth part of a pound Troy. Both are from the Latin uncia. The inch is the relic of an old duodecimal system. It was divided originally into twelve lines. According to an English statute of 1324, an inch is the length of "three barleycorns, round and dry." The English inch is a trifle shorter than the Scotch inch. It is not a scientific measure, that is to say, if all the graduated rules were destroyed the exact inch could never be reestablished by means of any measure existing in nature. In Iowa an inch of cream has been defined by statute as a half gallon. The miner's inch is the amount of water per minute running through a hole an inch square.