A guz (also spelled gaz, from Hindustani / and Persian ), or Mughal yard, is a unit of length used in parts of Asia. Historically, it was a regionally variable measurement similar to the English

yard The yard (symbol: yd) is an English units, English unit of length in both the British imperial units, imperial and US United States customary units, customary systems of measurement equalling 3 foot (unit), feet or 36 inches. Sinc ...

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 The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

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 Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...

. The guz in

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...

at the end of the 17th century was quoted as being . By 1875, the average value of the guz in

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

was , but was in

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

and in

Bombay Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...

. 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 The metric system is a system of measurement that standardization, standardizes a set of base units and a nomenclature for describing relatively large and small quantities via decimal-based multiplicative unit prefixes. Though the rules gover ...

. But there are some different values still in use, like

Bikaner Bikaner () is a city in the northwest of the States and territories of India, state of Rajasthan, India. It is located northwest of the state capital, Jaipur. It is the administrative headquarters of Bikaner District and Bikaner division. Fo ...

has 1 guz/gaz = 2 ft officially recognized and in use. The guz is still commonly used in the

. It has become the standard word in

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

and

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

for "yard".

Name

The word ''guz'' (also spelled ''guzz'', at the time) entered the

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

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").A Minor case: OED contributions from a prison cell http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/02/william-minor/ The word also is reputed to have given the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

base at HMNB Devonport, in

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

, the affectionate nickname of "Guzz", as sailors referring to the

Dockyard A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Compared to shipyards, which are sometimes more involve ...

, 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

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

, it varied between .

Persia

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

, it was reported in the 1880s that 1 guz was for cloth, but for silk and carpet.

Nepal

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

, 1 guz was in the 20th century.

Southeast Asia

1 Malay ''gaz'' is around or 83.82 centimetres.