cubit

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English cubit, also cubite,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin cubitum (“elbow; the distance from the elbow to the fingertips”),^[5][6][7][8] also cubitus.^[9][2][10] The OED notes that Old French had cubite for the measure, but that the Latin word lives on in French as coude (“elbow”), Old French coute, and in Spanish codo.^[5] The OED, Barnhart, Skeat and Weekley connect the Latin noun with cubō (“to lie down, recline”).^{[5][6][11][12]} Etymonline reports that it is generally derived from Proto-Indo-European *keu(b)- (“to bend”), as Klein does,^[9][10] but that de Vaan finds this doubtful and takes cubitus to be a special use of the past participle of that verb, since people lie on their elbow when sleeping on their side and Romans reclined on it at dinner.^[9] It is related to cubicle.^[9][10] Measures named after the forearm were widespread: Etymonline compares Ancient Greek πῆχυς (pêkhus) and English ell.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The ancient measure of length: before 1338, in Robert Mannyng's Chronicle of England, according to Barnhart.^[6] The 1989 edition of the OED dated it about 1325,^[13] while the current OED's first record is from the early Wycliffite Bible (about 1384).^[5] Etymonline gives the early 14th century.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The word was first the name of the measure, which varied from place to place but was usually about 18 to 22 inches;^[5][9] Chaucer used it twice.^[4] English then took over the literal Latin sense of the forearm (1483, in the Catholicon Anglicum), and anatomists used it for the ulna (1398, Trevisa), occasionally for the elbow, and for the corresponding part of an animal's foreleg; these senses had died out by the 19th century.^[5][14] Johnson (1755) described the cubit as the distance from the bent elbow to the tip of the middle finger, a quarter of a well-proportioned man's height, and noted that some put the Hebrew cubit at twenty inches.^[15] Today the word is used only in historical contexts.^[5][14]

Timeline

• before 1338 – an ancient measure of length based on the forearm.^[6] The current OED's first record is from about 1384.^[5]
• 1398 – the ulna, a bone of the forearm (obsolete).^[5]
• c. 1440 – the elbow (obsolete).^[5]
• 1483 – the forearm (obsolete by 1713).^[5]
• c. 1720 – in zoology, the corresponding part of a quadruped's foreleg.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An ancient unit of length based on the forearm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, usually about 18 inches (45 cm).^[16][2][5]
2. (obsolete) The forearm, or the ulna.^[5][14]

Word family

• cubital

Related words

• cubitus
• cubicle

Usage notes

In 19th-century British slang the cubit was the prison treadmill, named after William Cubitt, who invented it.^[17] Punishment by the cubit was a spell on the treadmill.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
17. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com