Hair's breadth
Hair's breadth (Capillus) was an inaccurate fixed human linear dimension to the twelfth part of a line corresponded.
The line, the twelfth part of an inch , was understood to be the length of the white at the root of the nail on the human middle finger . The hair diameter represented the measure and thus it corresponded to 1 point (duodecimal). Based on the Paris line reference dimension, it would correspond to 0.0001875 meters .
Literally, a tight situation is also referred to as a hair's breadth that has resulted in a positive or negative outcome.
Individual proof
- ^ Friedrich Gottlob Hayne, Carl Ludwig Willdenow: T ermini botanici iconibus illustrati: or, Botanical Art Language explained through illustrations. Berlin (1799) 1807, p. 15