Ells to Inches (ell to in)

1 ell equals 45 inches exactly.

1 ell = 45 inches

How to convert ells to inches

To convert ells to inches, multiply the number of ells by 45. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply inches by 0.02222222222 (rounded).

inches = ells × 45

Example: 10 ells = 450 inches.

About these units

Ell (ell)

Medieval EnglishHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)

45 inches (1.143 m). An English cloth measure, about the length of an arm. Other countries' ells ranged from about 0.46 m (Viking) to 1.37 m (the French aune).

Elbow and ell share a root: Old English eln meant the forearm, and the Latin ulna is a distant cousin. The ell began as an arm-length cubit, and later cloth ells grew longer. English tailors and drapers used one of 45 inches, a yard and a quarter, equal to 1.143 m, the figure used here. Edward I required every English town to keep an ell-wand as a standard rod for official measurement, and a surviving iron ell-wand hangs in a church on Gotland.

Each region had its own ell, which is why the unit is flagged as varying. A Scottish ell was about 37 inches (0.94 m), fixed in 1661 and abolished by the 1824 Weights and Measures Act. The Flemish ell was 27 inches (68.6 cm), and English importers of Dutch cloth bought by it. The French aune was about 137 cm, while German and Scandinavian ells were far shorter, from roughly 55 to 63 cm. Linen was sold by the English ell, but tapestry by the Flemish one.

1 ell = 1.143 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Ell; Wiktionary: ell

Inch (in)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

1/12 of a foot. Defined as exactly 25.4 millimeters since 1959, when the US and Commonwealth countries agreed a common international inch.

Latin uncia, meaning one-twelfth, is the root of both inch and ounce, and it passed into Old English as ynce. Roman measurers divided their foot into twelve unciae, and the English inch kept that twelfth. After 1066 an inch was reckoned as three barleycorns, and a 1324 statute attributed to Edward II spelled out the definition as three grains of barley, dry and round, placed end to end lengthwise. For centuries the inch was simply a twelfth of a foot, or a thirty-sixth of a yard, and the US and UK each kept their own copy of the standard yard.

Those copies differed slightly until the 1959 international agreement fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meter, which made the inch exactly 25.4 millimeters. The US adopted it in 1959 and the UK ratified it in 1963, effective 1964. Today the inch is still the customary unit in the United States and Canada, and the UK keeps it on road signs. Worldwide it also names display diagonals, wheel rims, tire codes and pipe sizes.

1 inch = 0.0254 meters (exactly).

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

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