The furlong, a unit of measurement equal to one-eighth of a mile, was used in the UK and US but is now less common. It is related to the Greek and Roman stade, which is slightly smaller. The word furlong comes from Anglo-Saxon and refers to the length of a furrow. The metric system is now more widely used, making conversions easier.
A furlong is a unit of measurement in the UK and US, not often seen in modern times. Translates to one-eighth of a mile, 660 feet or 220 yards (20 km or 201.17 m). So if you were traveling at a speed of 10 km/h, you would essentially be traveling 16.09 stadia per hour.
Furlong is closely related to the Greek and Roman measure of stade, which is somewhat smaller. The stadium is 625 feet (190.5 m). Early English translations of the Greek text in the Bible complicated the matter of measurement by replacing stade with furlong, despite the fact that this was inaccurate. Like furlongs, however, the stade made up one-eighth of the Roman mile.
After the fall of Roman control over Europe, the English retained much of these original units of measurement and published specific measurements by the 1300s. Furlongs were especially important, as they tended to measure one row or furrow in an acre. The British acre was essentially one furlong and one chain length, 22 yards (20.12 m), wide. The football field is about half a furlong in length.
Furlong, in the origin of words, is a portmanteau word, a combination of the words furrow (fuhr) and lang, meaning long. The word comes from Anglo-Saxon and survived through the transition to Middle and then Modern English. Typically, the most practical use of the word day as a measure is when discussing distances in horse racing. Race distances are still measured in both miles and stadiums.
Since the UK has adopted the metric system and the US has also tried to adopt it, it is likely that you will see much less use of the furlong as a unit of measurement in the future. In 1985, the UK passed the Weights and Measures Act, which standardized the use of metric measurements. The metric system is in many ways more practical to use, as it is built on a base 10 system, making conversions much easier.
Conversions are much more difficult when the units of measurement are somewhat random, such as with US customary units. A foot is 12 inches, a yard is three feet, and a furlong is an eighth of a mile. You can’t always depend on the same number with measurements like the mile or foot to figure out how each unit fits in with the others.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
