footbreadth
English
editEtymology
editFrom foot + breadth. Compare Middle English fote-brede.
Noun
editfootbreadth (plural footbreadths)
- The breadth of a foot; used as a measure.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 2:5:
- Meddle not with them; for I will not give you of their land, no, not so much as a footbreadth; because I have given Mount Seir unto Esau for a possession.
- 1863 November 23, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Sage of King Olaf”, in Tales of a Wayside Inn, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC:
- Wherewith at a stroke he hewed
The millstone through and through,
And Foot-breadth of Thoralf the Strong,
Were neither so broad nor so long