According to Lewis and Short, one version of the palmus was equal to a "span" of twelve digits:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/pt ... 3D%2333517
Could anyone post the passages on which this is supposedly based? Thanks.
adrianus wrote:http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Varro/de_Re_Rustica/3*.html
benissimus wrote:Am I missing something?
Varr. R. R. 3.7 wrote:Nihil enim timidius columba. Singulis paribus columbaria fiunt rutunda in ordinem crebra, ordines quam plurimi possunt a terra usque ad camaram. Columbaria singula esse oportet ut os habeat, quo modo introire et exire possit, intus ternarum palmarum ex omnibus partibus. Sub ordines singulos tabulae fictae ut sint bipalmes, quo utantur vestibulo ac prodeant.
Oxford English Dictionary on 'span' wrote: 1. a. The distance from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger, or sometimes to the tip of the forefinger, when the hand is fully extended; the space equivalent to this taken as a measure of length, averaging nine inches.
Freq. followed by a positive or comparative adj.
c900 tr. Baeda's Hist. IV. xi. (1890) 296 a wæs se lichoma sponne [v.r. spanne] lengra ære ryh. c1000 ÆLFRIC Gloss. in Wr.-Wülcker 158 Palmus, span uel handbred. a1310 in Wright Lyric P. ix. 35 Swannes swyre swythe wel y-sette, A sponne lengore then y-mette. c1380 Sir Ferumb. 1607 e swerd..clef him anne, Til it hadde in-to is bodi i-sot by-nythe is brest a spanne. c1386 CHAUCER Prol. 155 Sche hadde a fair forheed. It was almost a spanne brood, I trowe. 14.. Sir Beues (S.) 2509 A span long ey [i.e. bristles] were, wel rowe. c1440 Promp. Parv. 467/1 Spanne, mesure of the hand, palmus,..palmata. 1483 Cath. Angl. 351 A Spayn (A. Spane), palmus. 1535 COVERDALE Judges iii. 16 Ehud made him a two edged dagger of a spanne longe. 1577-87 HOLINSHED Chron. I. 92/1 The space of his forehead betwixt his two eies was a span broad. 1660 BOYLE New Exp. Phys. Mech. ix. (1682) 39 There happen'd in the great Receiver a crack of about a Span long. 1671 J. WEBSTER Metallogr. xi. 158 They go no deeper than a span or two. 1718 Free-thinker No. 47. 343 Pharao..was a Dwarf, but seven Spans high. 1756-7 tr. Keysler's Trav. (1760) II. 276 The diameter..is twelve common spans, or near eight feet. 1811 A. T. THOMSON Lond. Disp. (1818) 36 The stems trailing, about a span in length. 1862 DRAPER Intell. Devel. Europe xiii. (1865) 303 In which there are walking about men, a span long.
adrianus wrote:Here it is! An English "span" (of a widely extended hand, which equals 12 digits = 9 inches because 16 digits = 12 inches) is "palmus" in later Latin.
WPThayer wrote:The Greek has 2 cubits long, 1 span for the dart length: τὸ δὲ βέλος τοιοῦτον· διπάλαιστον ἦν, ἴσον ἔχον τὸν αὐλίσκον τῇ προβολῇ. τούτῳ ξύλον ἐνήρμοστο τῷ μὲν μήκει σπιθαμιαῖον, τῷ δὲ πάχει δακτυλιαίαν ἔχον τῆν διάμετρον.)
Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 90 guests