cloth yard

American  

noun

1. a unit of measure for cloth, formerly 37 inches (0.93 meter), now the equivalent of the standard yard (0.91 meter); 36 inches; 3 feet.

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Etymology

Origin of cloth yard

late Middle English word dating back to 1425–75

Example Sentences

Draw your bow three inches more than the standard cloth yard of twenty-eight inches and you break it.

From Hunting with the Bow and Arrow by Pope, Saxton

My ideas were harrowed by the tales we were told—nothing short of the truth—about the Saxon archers: how they drew shafts of a cloth yard length, and used bows a third longer than ours.

From The Fair Maid of Perth Or, St. Valentine's Day by Scott, Walter, Sir

The largest ones, however, were six feet long, and as the arrow was always half the length of the bow, the longest arrows measured three feet, which is just a cloth yard.

From Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 An Illustrated Weekly by Various

With Spanish Ewgh so strong, Arrowes a cloth yard long, That like to serpents stung, Piercing the weather.

From The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. by Various