inch

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   An English unit of length equal to 1/12 of a foot or 2.54 cm, conceived as roughly the width of a thumb.

   The sledges of the Esquimaux are of large size, varying from six and a half to nine and even eleven feet in length, and from eighteen inches to two feet in breadth.

2. 2
   noun

   Any very short distance.

   Don't move an inch!

3. 3
   noun

   A depth of one inch on the ground, used as a measurement of rainfall.

   Let us consider what one inch of rain really means. If an acre of land were covered with water to the depth of only the tenth part of an inch, that layer of water would weigh more than 10 tons: thus 1 inch of rain is ten times that amount—in fact, very nearly 101 tons.

4. 4
   verb

   To advance very slowly, or by a small amount (in a particular direction).

   Fearful of falling, he inched along the window ledge.

5. 5
   verb

   To drive by inches, or small degrees.

   He gets too far into the soldier's grace / And inches out my master.

6. 6
   noun

   A small island; an islet.

   The blackening wave is edged with white; / To inch and rock the sea-mews fly.

7. 7
   noun

   A meadow, pasture, field, or haugh.

   An ivy-clad farmhouse surrounded by trees, it stood on the sunny side of a sloping hill at the foot of which the Darigle river curved its way through gold-furzed inches to disappear under a stone bridge into the woods beyond.

8. 8
   adj

   cocky and cheeky

   I still remember Donald Duck sit next to him after NG dog being 'Done'd to F.2 building... he is still very Inch in Year 1983-4 teaching me RS

Etymology

From Middle English ynche, enche, from Old English ynċe, borrowed from Latin uncia (“Roman inch, various similar units”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *óynos (“one”). Cognate with Middle Dutch enke (“thumb, thumb's width, inch”). Doublet of ounce, uncia, onça, onza, oka, ouguiya, and awqiyyah.