Cubits to Feet (cbt to ft)

1 cubit equals 1.5 feet exactly.

1 cubit = 1.5 feet

How to convert cubits to feet

To convert cubits to feet, multiply the number of cubits by 1.5. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply feet by 0.6666666667 (rounded).

feet = cubits × 1.5

Example: 10 cubits = 15 feet.

Approximate value. Standards for the cubit varied by place and period, so this converter uses the most commonly cited value. Treat results as estimates, not exact figures.

About these units

Cubit (cbt)

Medieval EnglishHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

Traditionally the length from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. The common English cubit is taken as 18 inches (45.72 cm); ancient cubits ranged from about 44 to 53 cm.

From the Latin cubitum, meaning elbow, the cubit was the forearm measured from the elbow to the fingertips. English use tied it to roughly 18 inches, or 45.72 cm. Such a hand-and-arm measure is the same idea that produced the ell, which Wikipedia describes as originally a cubit.

No single value ever governed it. Wikipedia lists most ancient cubits between 44.4 and 52.92 cm, from the Roman cubitus of about 444 mm, which Vitruvius set at one and a half Roman feet, to the Egyptian royal cubit near 523 to 529 mm. Medieval Islamic cubits ranged far wider still.

The English ell eventually settled at 45 inches, one and a quarter yards, while the cubit faded from commerce. A trace survives in hedgelaying, where a forearm of about 18 inches sets the spacing of stakes. The figure used here is the 18 inch English cubit.

1 cubit = 0.4572 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Cubit; Wikipedia: Ell

Foot (ft)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

12 inches. Defined as exactly 0.3048 meters. Still the standard unit for height, altitude in aviation and room dimensions in the US and UK.

Human anatomy supplied the idea: an adult foot is roughly 15 percent of body height. Ancient cultures turned that into standards, but not the same one. The Greek pous was about 302 mm, the standard Roman pes about 295.7 mm, and a Harappan foot of about 335 mm has been reported from the Indus Valley. Historically, a foot fell somewhere between about 250 and 335 mm. Charlemagne tried to standardize units around 790 with little lasting success, and in 1593 English law fixed the statute mile at 5,280 feet.

The modern foot dates from the 1959 International Yard and Pound Agreement, which defined the yard as exactly 0.9144 meter and so the foot as exactly 0.3048 meter; the UK adopted it on 1 January 1964. The US survey foot, defined in 1893 as 1200/3937 meter, was deprecated on 31 December 2022. Feet remain in everyday use for height and rooms in the US, and ISO shipping containers are defined in them. Aviation altitudes use them too: flight level 330 means 33,000 feet.

1 foot = 0.3048 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Foot (unit); Wikipedia: Mile; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

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