A guz or the Mughal yard is a
unit of length used in parts of Asia. Historically, it was a regionally variable measurement similar to the English
yard both in size and in that it was often used for measuring textiles. Values of the guz ranged from over time. Today, it is generally used in the
Indian subcontinent as the word for a yard. A present day
sari is still measured as 7 guz while a traditional one can be as long as 9 guz.
History
Use of the guz in India was first established during the
Mughal Empire. The guz in
Rajasthan at the end of the 17th century was quoted as being .
By 1875, the average value of the guz in
Bengal was , but was in
Madras
Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
and in
Bombay.
By the 20th century, the guz was uniformly quoted as being equal in length to one yard in the
English system, or 0.91 metres in the
metric system. But there are some different values still in use, like
Bikaner has 1 guz/gaz = 2 ft officially recognized and in use.
The guz is still commonly used in the
Indian subcontinent. It has become the standard word in
Hindi and
Urdu for "yard".
Name
The word ''guz'' (also spelled ''guzz'', at the time) entered the
Oxford English Dictionary in the late 19th century, having been originally submitted by the noted lexicographer
William Chester Minor, originally as being equal to in India (so that "5 guzz = 4 yards"). The word also is reputed to have given the
Royal Navy base at
HMNB Devonport
His Majesty's Naval Base, Devonport (HMNB Devonport) is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Clyde and HMNB Portsmouth) and is the sole nuclear repair and refuelling facility for the Roy ...
, in
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
, the affectionate nickname of "Guzz", as sailors referring to the
Dockyard, used to regularly abbreviate the word to simply "The Yard", leading to the slang use of the Hindi word for the unit of measurement of the same name.
Regional definitions
Arabia
In
Arabia, it varied between .
Persia
In
Persia, it was reported in the 1880s that 1 guz was for cloth, but for silk and carpet.
Nepal
In
Nepal, 1 guz was in the 20th century.
Southeast Asia
1
Malay
Malay may refer to:
Languages
* Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore
** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century
** Indonesi ...
''gaz'' is around or 83.82 centimetres.
References
Further reading
*{{citation , author = Prinsep, James , year = 1840 , title = Useful tables, forming an appendix to the Journal of the Asiatic Society: part the first, Coins, weights, and measures of British India , url = https://archive.org/details/usefultablesfor01pringoog , edition = 2nd , publisher = Bishop's College Press
Units of length
Customary units in India
Obsolete units of measurement