Daily AncestorHand
A hand is a measure of 4 inches, used to give a horse's height, as in a bay mare 15 hands high.
The hand began as the breadth of a human hand and was fixed at four inches in England by a law of 1540. A horse is measured from the ground to the top of the withers, the ridge between the shoulder blades.
Heights are written in hands and inches, so 15.2 means 15 hands and 2 inches, or 62 inches, not 15 and two tenths. When a horse in a record is described as 14 hands high, it stood 56 inches.
As seen in a recordEstray notice, county court record, 1810s
Taken up by Amos Fry, a sorrel horse about 14 hands high, branded on the near shoulder
Sources
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Daily Ancestor. "Hand." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/money-measures/hand-measure. Last checked 2026-10-03.