One of the mysteries of the English language finally explained.
An ancient measure of length, approximately equal to the length of a forearm. It was typically about 18 inches or 44 cm, though there was a long cubit of about 21 inches or 52 cm.
- ‘Tamil Brahman women wear a sari that is eighteen cubits long.’
- ‘A tree measuring 50 cubits in height is constructed in Haman's palace where Mordechai is scheduled to be hung in humiliation immediately before the royal feast the following day.’
- ‘It starts about an hour before sunrise (from when you can recognize a friend from four cubits away), and continues until about 8 a.m.’
- ‘The English system of yards, pounds, and acres is more compatible with Biblical measurements such as cubits.’
- ‘Between this pillar and the pillar of the true Trinity there was a gap three cubits wide in the wall.’
- ‘At this height the statue would have measured between three and seven feet (one and two meters), depending on the length of the cubit.’
- ‘The temple extended 60 cubit beneath the earth and rose 120 cubits above the surface.’
- ‘The base is a square of side 4 cubits, the top is a square of side 2 cubits and the height of the truncated pyramid is 6 cubits.’
- ‘When Noah complains that 300 cubits is awfully long for a boat, God tells him: ‘I think big.’’
- ‘Summers mentions Indian sculpture that uses the palm as a module and Egyptian reliefs that use grids and cubits as their units.’
- ‘After it had been quarried at Hatnub, I had it transported downstream in the barge that I had made for it, a barge of acacia wood of 60 cubits in length and 30 cubits in width.’
- ‘According to the Bible, the Ark was 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high.’
- ‘In ancient Egypt, a cubit was the distance from the elbow to the fingertips.’
- ‘The basic measuring instrument was the cubit rod, the cubit being the length of the pharaoh's arm from his elbow to the tip of his fingers.’
- ‘It took a line of 30 cubits to measure around it.’
- ‘The street twisted and turned to such a degree, he could not see more than twelve cubits in any direction.’
- ‘In the book of Daniel, chapter 3:1 to 2, the Bible tells us that Nebuchadnezzar made a huge image of gold about 60 cubits high and six cubits wide.’
- ‘David leveled the Philistine Goliath, ‘whose height was six cubits and a span,’ with a stone.’
- ‘And from the deserts of India, too, came ancient reports of a serpent seventy cubits - that is, more than a hundred feet - long.’
- ‘The room must be at least 4 cubits by 4 cubits.’
Middle English: from Latin cubitum ‘elbow, forearm, cubit’.
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