The arshin or arşın is an old Turkish and Russian unit of length ( or ) The Turkish "market arşın" was about long. The masonry arşın was 75.774 cm on average (mason's arşın = 24 parmak = 240 ḫaṭṭ) The usage of arşın was gradually abolished during 1931–1933 with the introduction of 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 ...

. The Russian word ' used to be variously transcribed as arshin, archeen, archin, archine, arsheen, and arshine. The Russian arshin had different length at different times. In the 16th century it was 27

inch The inch (symbol: in or prime (symbol), ) is a Units of measurement, unit of length in the imperial units, British Imperial and the United States customary units, United States customary System of measurement, systems of measurement. It is eq ...

es. In the 18th century,

Peter the Great Peter I (, ; – ), better known as Peter the Great, was the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia, Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned j ...

standardized in to 28 inches or 71.12 cm. The arshin-length ruler was also called "arshin". South Slavic peoples used a unit of length named aršin of several types based on the Turkish arşın, under the influence of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, described as "the distance from the fingertips to the shoulder".Abdulah Škaljić: "Turcizmi u srpskohrvatskom jeziku"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arsin Obsolete units of measurement Ottoman units of measurement Units of length

See also

References