Hair's Breadth - Human Hair Diameter

A hair's breadth, or the width of human hair, is used as an informal unit of a very short length. It connotes "a very small margin" or the narrowest degree in many contexts.

A "hair's breadth" was, and still is, informally, a very small measurement.

Definitions

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This measurement is not a precise one. Human hair varies in diameter, ranging anywhere from 30 μm to 100 μm. One nominal value often chosen is 75 μm, but this â€" like other measures based upon such highly variant natural objects, including the barleycorn â€" is subject to a fair degree of imprecision.

Such measures can be found in many cultures. The English "hair's breadth" 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").

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). 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).

Other body part measurements

Diameter of a Human Hair - The Physics Factbook. Source : hypertextbook.com

Winning a competition, such as a horse race, "by a whisker" (that is 'by a hair length') is a narrower margin of victory than winning "by a nose." 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." German speakers likewise have a small measurement, i.e. the Muggeseggele.

See also

Diameter of a Human Hair - The Physics Factbook. Source : hypertextbook.com

• Beard-second
• List of humorous units of measurement
• List of unusual units of measurement

References

By a Hair's Breadth â€" Hair Analysis Evidence | Wrongful .... Source : wrongfulconvictionsblog.org

Notes

Citations

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. CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link)
• Carey, Felix (1814). "Of Weights &c.". A grammar of the Burman language. Mission Press/Google books. p. 209. 
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• 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. 
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• 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. 
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Diameter of a Human Hair - The Physics Factbook. Source : hypertextbook.com