Barleycorns to Yards (bc to yd)

1 barleycorn equals 0.009259259259 yards (rounded).

1 barleycorn = 0.009259259259 yards

How to convert barleycorns to yards

To convert barleycorns to yards, multiply the number of barleycorns by 0.009259259259. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply yards by 108.

yards = barleycorns × 0.009259259259

Example: 10 barleycorns = 0.09259259259 yards.

About these units

Barleycorn (bc)

Medieval EnglishHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)

One third of an inch. A medieval English unit defined as the length of a grain of barley; the origin of the shoe-size increment.

Three dry, round grains of barley laid end to end made an inch, according to an English statute known as the Composition of Yards and Perches, dated about 1300. The idea is older still, since the Welsh Laws of Hywel Dda in the 10th century used a similar rule. A barleycorn is therefore one third of an inch, about 8.47 mm, although Wikipedia's infobox rounds it to 8.46 mm. Wiktionary describes the word simply as a compound of barley and corn, meaning grain.

Real barley kernels range from roughly 4 to 15 mm depending on the cultivar, and older sources put the average near 8.8 mm, so the grain gave a notion of size, not a precise standard. Formal standards were later set by comparison with a reference yard bar, with the barleycorn taken as 1/108 of its length. A line is a quarter of a barleycorn and a poppyseed a quarter or fifth. The unit lives on mainly in shoe sizing in some English-speaking countries, where each size step is one barleycorn.

1 barleycorn = 0.008466666667 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Barleycorn (unit); Wiktionary: barleycorn

Yard (yd)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

3 feet or 36 inches, exactly 0.9144 meters. Used for sports fields, fabric and short distances in the US and UK.

Yard descends from the Old English gerd or gyrd, meaning a branch, stave or measuring rod. It first appears in the late seventh-century laws of Ine of Wessex, though there it names a tax unit, the yardland. Around 959 to 963 King Edgar ordered that the measure held at Winchester be used throughout his realm, the earliest record of a prototype. A story that Henry I fixed the yard as the distance from his nose to his thumb is later folklore, and the true origin, whether pace, cubit or waist, remains speculative.

Britain defined the Imperial Standard Yard in 1824 as the distance between two marks on a brass rod at 62 degrees Fahrenheit. A fire in 1834 damaged the standard, a replacement was made in 1845, and the Weights and Measures Act 1855 recognized it. The 1959 international agreement then fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meter. Today it measures American and Canadian football fields, association football pitches and cricket pitches, appears on UK road signs for short distances, and is still used to sell fabric in the US and UK.

1 yard = 0.9144 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Yard; Wikipedia: Inch; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Related conversions

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