Length/Distance 

Convert from digit to gry

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Unit Definition (digit)
The digit is a historic unit of distance equal to the width of a person's finger. Used in all the ancient civilizations of the Middle East and Mediterranean, the digit was equal to 0.75 inch or 19 millimeters with only the smallest variations. Typically, there were 4 digits in a palm, 16 in a foot, and 24 (sometimes 28) in a cubit. The word digit is from the Latin word for a finger or toe, digitus.

Unit Definition (gry)
The gry is a proposed unit of distance in the English traditional system. The name was first used in June 1679 by the philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) as a unit equal to 0.001 foot, 0.01 inch, or 0.1 line in a decimalized distance system. (Thomas Jefferson, who was very familiar with Locke's writings, later proposed a similar system in the U.S., but he called 0.001 foot a point rather than a gry.) In 1813, the gry was revived in another decimal measurement scheme in Britain. All these ideas failed, but the gry had some limited use in the nineteenth century as a unit equal to 0.1 line or 1/120 inch (0.211 667 millimeter). Long forgotten, the gry recently came back into the limelight in connection with a puzzle, circulating on the Internet, which asked for three English words ending in -gry. The word "gry" is from the ancient Greek, where it meant "a trifling amount".


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