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You are here: Home / Language / How Long is a Furlong, What Does it Mean, and How Did the Unit of Measurement Originate?

How Long is a Furlong, What Does it Mean, and How Did the Unit of Measurement Originate?

June 27, 2020 by Karen Hill

The furlong is an ancient British unit of measurement, literally meaning the length of a furrow.

It’s the distance a horse can pull a plow without resting, which was calculated at exactly 220 yards, or 201.168 metres.

When the Romans introduced the mile to Britain, it was changed in length to accommodate a tidy eight furlongs.

This was done because all property and other precise distances such as that of a horse race were measured locally in furlongs.

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Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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