inch1
/ɪn(t)ʃ
/noun
1A unit of linear measure equal to one twelfth of a foot (2.54 cm): the toy train is four inches long eighteen inches of thread...
- A meter is about three feet and three inches and a kilometer equals about six tenths of a mile.
- Arriving there, Legrand noted one particular ledge about twelve inches wide and eighteen inches long, several feet below the top of the rock.
- Progress can be slow; you measure it in inches and feet, not miles or kilograms.
1.1 (inches) informal A person’s height or waist measurement: my only reservation is the goalkeeper’s lack of inches...
- Chef to the stars Juliano is the gourmet genius who has created a diet that he claims has taken years off her appearance and inches off her waist.
- Plenty of cheesy sandwiches and desserts to add inches to the waist.
- I had the peat mud wrap, but in the past I've had Pevonia's green coffee wrap at the Monart spa, in Ireland, which took inches off my waistline.
1.2 [often with negative] A very small amount or distance: I had no intention of budging an inch...
- After setting the distance in inches of my average step, I hooked it on to my waistband and flounced around the kitchen and dining room for several minutes.
- Thirdly, despite working crazy hours I seemed to have all the ingredients needed for this particular tart without budging an inch.
- Scalia budged not one inch during the question-and-answer period after a speech Tuesday at Amherst College in Massachusetts.
2A unit used to express other quantities, in particular:New York City says cleanup generally means $1 million for each inch of snowfall....
- Rainfall amounts still on the order of maybe two to five inches.
- The airport gets about 120 inches of rain per year.
2.1(As a unit of rainfall) a quantity that would cover a horizontal surface to a depth of one inch, equivalent to 253.7 cubic metres per hectare: more than four inches of rain is expected...
- Almost four inches of rain fell on the region during a 12-hour period.
- In July in 1861, an incredible 366 inches of rain fell during what had been a record-breaking year for rainfall in the region.
- Boscastle, on the north coast of Cornwall, was struck after a downpour in which seven inches of rain fell in nine hours.
2.2 (also inch of mercury) (As a unit of atmospheric pressure) an amount that would support a column of mercury one-inch high in a barometer (equal to 33.86 millibars, 29.5 inches being equal to one bar).What is the formula for converting pressure in millibars of pressure to inches of mercury?...
- Average barometric pressure in Tampa Bay during the summer is about 29.8 inches of mercury or about 1013 millibar (mb).
- The amount of vacuum, in inches of mercury, is equal to the weight of the column of water from the water table to the surface.
2.3(As a unit of map scale) so many inches representing one mile on the ground: [in combination]: one-inch maps of the east Midland counties...
- For every town five detailed maps were drawn at a scale of two inches to the mile, accompanied by a legend.
- A prime objective was to produce a map on the scale of one inch to the mile for the entire British Isles.
- The charts of Moresby and Elwon were drafted by Felix Jones to a scale of one inch to the mile (in the trickier parts, ten inches to the mile), and published in 1834.
verb [no object, with adverbial of direction]
1Move along slowly and carefully: he inched away as I approached figurative Spain’s conservatives are inching ahead...
- As I sat on a bus today, inching along in traffic, it became clear to me that all buses should be free.
- Stealthily, you inch along a narrow and foreboding corridor.
- The light was inching along slowly, but it had almost finished its circuit.
1.1 [with object and adverbial of direction] Cause (something) to move slowly and carefully: he inched the car forward...
- Aleck tried to pull the ring off, by slowly inching it forward and twisting from side to side, but had no luck either.
- They kept begging and pleading with him, but he kept relentlessly inching the vehicle forward.
- Only the edge of her profile was visible, so I inched it forward to get a better view.
Phrases
by inches
every inch
give someone an inch and he (or she) will take a mile
inch by inch
within an inch of
(to) within an inch of one's life
Origin
Late Old English ynce, from Latin uncia 'twelfth part', from unus 'one' (probably denoting a unit). Compare with ounce1.
The inch and the ounce have the same ultimate origin, both going back to Latin uncia ‘twelfth part’. The observation give someone an inch and they will take a mile dates from the mid 16th century. Originally people often took an ell rather than a mile (an ell is an old measure equal to just over a metre, used especially for cloth). The inch in the name of some Scottish islands, such as Inchcolm, is a completely different word, deriving from Scottish Gaelic innis ‘island, land by a river’.
Rhymes
inch2
/ɪn(t)ʃ/noun [in place names] chiefly Scottish
A small island or a small area of high land: Inchkeith
Origin
Middle English: from Scottish Gaelic innis.
- microanalyst
- microanalytical
- microanalyzer
- microanatomic
- microanatomical
- microanatomically
- microanatomist
- microanatomy
- microangiopathy
- microarchitecture
- microarray
- microatoll
- microbacterium
- microbal
- microbalance
- microballoon
- microbarograph
- microbarom
- microbe
- microbeads
- microbeam
- microbeer
- microbenthic
- microbenthos
- microbial