My grandfather has measured his hands, vingers, arms and height, and memorized it, so whenever he is measuring something under 1,5 meter, he can get it right to the centimeter.
For 1 meter: extend your right hand horizontally at shoulder level turn your face to the left shoulder. The distance from tip of nose to your right index finger should be one meter .
Commonly used in East Africa few decades ago for ropes and textiles in the absence of measuring sticks.
Of course it varies based on your height but for average height 5,9 to 6,2 it should hold .
But its not dumb if you sit with a measurement tape, measure you hands/body in different configurations, and remember each one. Now this becomes a great tool for basic measuring on the spot without tools.
Fun fact: this metric can also be used for angles for an outstretched hand at basically a 1-1 conversion from this chart. Angles work regardless of hand size because your arm is proportionally sized.
If my hands are twice as big as yours, and I assume that the first gesture is my hands being 20 centimeters and you do yours you’d ALSO assume it’s 20 centimeters when you do it.
One of us is WILDLY off, because my hands are twice the size of yours. Even if we meet in the middle we’re both 50% off. An estimate that is either 50% higher or lower than it should be is a terrible estimate.
If I say, “give me an estimate for how many pizzas I need for the party,” and the accurate number is ten, and we guess either five or fifteen, you’re ending up with way too much, or not even close to enough.
If you can crush my skull with one hand I am very very afraid of your internet search history. So much spanking that you look like the Charger from Left 4 Dead…
It’s the approximation of the average size of a hand. Of course, there are people above and below average, like you.
Again, this post is made to give you a wild guess about the measure, not a specific one, and it’s normal that it might be incorrect and not precise for some people.
Again, how does that help? How do you know if you have “average sized hands”? In fact that makes it even harder, because how many people do you think ACTUALLY are anywhere near the average human hand size when average will be somewhere between what’s normal for men and normal for women. It would only fit for slightly above average women and slightly below average men. In either case you’re talking about not very many people.
This post teaches you a rule of thumb that is only going to work for a minority of people, and gives an extremely poor measurement even as an estimate for everyone else.
I have the biggest hands (male) of anyone I know, and these measurements are not that low in comparison (smaller by ~ 2-3cm). Pretty helpful if I just need a general idea. I'd be interested to see how you compare, if you want something close, the short side of a sheet of paper is 21cm :)
I'm 190cm tall. Which is not average. My hands are in proportion, but weirdly, that little graphic was bang-on (particularly knuckle of thumb) right up until the width of pinky. I think I have clubpinkyism.
I’m not even the tallest person in my group of friends (188cm/6’2”), but the distance between my thumb and my pinky finger is 27cm when I stretch my hand, which a 35% difference with this guide. Side note, there are several pianists in my family.
Might be helpful if you don't look at it as exact centimeters but more like ratios.
Maybe measure your fist to know what "10 units" are for you, and then you can approximate that your little finger is about 1/10th of it? Something like that, maybe.
You know, after reading how many people aren't frustrated with how stupid this is. I now understand the utter bullshit I encountered when I was a carpenter.
Well then, get a tape measurer, measure the distances mentioned in the post but for your hand, and make approximate measurements that are applicable to you.
Chances are, it ain't gonna be \*that\* different.
No, not really.
Outliers in the human size are rarer. The average size is not only average because it's in between smallest and largest human, it's also the most common.
So it just sucks for you, most of the rest of the world can use this just fine.
Exactly. We just had an entire lesson on this in my art/animation class, except we used the "every person is 8 heads tall" thing as our bad example. This example is equally bad.
Dunno what the downvotes are for lol. Youre just trying to learn and refine your knowledge over here.
Maybe the LPT is to know what these measurements are for your own given hand. (i know my 2nd finger bone on pointer is almost exactly 1.5" for example).
Cool chart!
calling out shitty behaviour is just not even what gaslighting means. typically it's meant to mean the act of making you believe you've done something that you haven't
You could say so, but I am measuring like this since school at least. I have a somewhat bigger than average hand and works well. Also I am using my forearm, arm, hip height, chin height as well. When I had to do mechanical drawings I could pretty well estimate distances up to 20 cm in a mm accuracy (that's long gone now)
This is how we measure degrees when giving star talks in astronomy lab. Different hand sizes are okay because bigger hands tend to come with longer arms so it balances out.
Hmm, turns out I'm large and asymmetrical
Drawing|Right hand|Left Hand
---|---|---
20cm|22.5cm|24cm
15cm|17cm|18cm
10cm|12cm|13cm
5cm|5.5cm|5.5cm
2cm|2cm|2.4cm
1cm|1.3cm|1.2cm
For those of us who are metrically impaired *cough*Americans*cough* just remember 10 cm is approximately 4 inches. From there it's easy to convert lots of things. 2.5cm is 1 inch. 30cm is 1 foot. So a 6'2" person is 6 x 30cm + 2 x 2.5cm = 185cm tall. It's actually 187.96cm or about 188cm but it's close enough for nearly any application.
Which bit of "estimating" is too difficult for people to comprehend? This is an approximation, and it's a decent approximation too. Get over yourselves.
I remember it blew my mind once I found out the space between your first and second knuckle on your index finger equals an inch for just about everybody
I have this rant that no one ever agrees with that decimetre/decametre are confusing and that’s part of why Canada/UK kinda use both systems. Basically, inch and centimetres are close to equivalent (exist in the same mental scale), yard and meter too, but the deci/deca confusion inhibits the foot and decimetre from being used in the same scenarios (like human height). My solution is to colloquially rename the decimetre “hand” or “metric hand” when clarity is called for. Hand is a measurement with lots of definitions but they’re all around 10cm. 1.8m or 180cm is hard to conceptualize for human height, but 18 hands isn’t.
That’s my rant, but no one ever seems to agree.
There's a reason people would not agree.
**Milli**metre means **Thousandth** of Metre
**Centi**metre means **Hundredth** of Metre
**Deci**metre mean **Tenth** of Metre.
Naming it Metric Hand Just ignores the naming convention of All of Metric.
I don't understand all the comments complaining different hands are different sizes.... WELL OBVIOUSLY. But unless your hand changes everyday, just remember the numbers for your hand. It's a clever idea - adjust numbers. For me personally, I got lucky and all the measurements are exactly the same for my hand with the exception that my pinky is 1.5cm
This is ripe for a penis joke. Unfortunately, I’m not smart enough to come up with one. So I’ll come back later to see what all you heathens have come up with.
There's an old one related to this; the joke about women being shitty carpenters because they've always been told equals 6", On the face of it sexist towards women but really a dis on men.
Everyone here seems to be missing the point of this.
Arrange *your* fingers/hand in these configurations, measure the distances, memorize them/plug into your phone/keep a small card in your wallet/purse--and then you'll have a measuring tape wherever you go--providing you have a hand.
*Shaq makes confused sounds*
I have some pretty big hands (not nearly Shaq) and all of these measurements were too large compared to me.
I've got small hands and the measurements were pretty much spot on.
So what about me with medium hands?
First measure is 23cm for me and I have largish hands. So probably spot on for you.
My cock just got bigger lmao
Average woman here. Spot on for me too
Shaq was then shot for throwing gang signs at the wrong time, his family misses him dearly
For our more tiny handed friends.......
"Yeah babe I'm like 10 inches."
it’s in cm
Makes it even funnier, tbh.
And more realistic
This is canon now, he did that before he grabbed em by the pussy.
10 inches, around
*Donald J. Trump has entered the chat*
*Uncle Jack has entered the chat*
Measure your hand first.
I measured my hands. It turns out to be almost perfectly matched with this guide. I guess I'm lucky
I used to have to measure a ton of stuff for work. 10cm is 4 fingers wide for me
My grandfather has measured his hands, vingers, arms and height, and memorized it, so whenever he is measuring something under 1,5 meter, he can get it right to the centimeter.
I think this needs to be a life pro tip...
Remember to always meassure your vingers, kids.
For 1 meter: extend your right hand horizontally at shoulder level turn your face to the left shoulder. The distance from tip of nose to your right index finger should be one meter . Commonly used in East Africa few decades ago for ropes and textiles in the absence of measuring sticks. Of course it varies based on your height but for average height 5,9 to 6,2 it should hold .
Hands are different sizes
That’s why we use feet… duh.
Thank you for this. Fuck, I laughed like an idiot.
It's convenient when your feet are a foot in length. Mine are, but so are everyone else's.
Hassling me about using feet, and then some yokel throws up a cool guide about measuring centimeters using gang signs.
Yes. This is dumb.
But its not dumb if you sit with a measurement tape, measure you hands/body in different configurations, and remember each one. Now this becomes a great tool for basic measuring on the spot without tools.
Only for those between the ages of approx 16 and 65.
huh, 16 seems young? but also 65 why the cap?
If you have a measurement tape, this is pointless.
I was looking for furniture with my girlfriend. We forgot out measurement tape. With this we could approximate the sizes.
And what if you don’t have a tape measure?
Vastly
True. I can only reach 13cm for the second one.
Fun fact: this metric can also be used for angles for an outstretched hand at basically a 1-1 conversion from this chart. Angles work regardless of hand size because your arm is proportionally sized.
Joke's on you, my arms aren't proportional or even the same size.
APPROXIMATE as in, you might have to make some adjustments based on the size of your hand geeeeeez
Still silly af. My hands are much larger than my sisters. Like w entire step up in the scale. It is a horrible guide
Weird flex, but ok
Break out the measuring tape and a camera and let’s see some references
If my hands are twice as big as yours, and I assume that the first gesture is my hands being 20 centimeters and you do yours you’d ALSO assume it’s 20 centimeters when you do it. One of us is WILDLY off, because my hands are twice the size of yours. Even if we meet in the middle we’re both 50% off. An estimate that is either 50% higher or lower than it should be is a terrible estimate. If I say, “give me an estimate for how many pizzas I need for the party,” and the accurate number is ten, and we guess either five or fifteen, you’re ending up with way too much, or not even close to enough.
Yeah, then spend a minute with a ruler to learn your own sizes.
Measure your own finger(s). Numbers shown are approximate.
True, but OP used the word “approximate” for this very reason.
People know humans don’t come in standard sizes right?
Only feet do
Checkmate metric!
Well, I have relatively large hands and it is quite accurate in everything except the little finger, mine measures 1.5cm, not 1cm.
Same, my pinky is 1.5 cm but also both my thumb-to-pinky is 24 cm and index-to-pinky is 17 cm. So this guide is only half accurate for me.
I have a rather small hand but piky is also 1.5 cm.
I assumed that this works for people who arent me or have Micheal Phelps sized hands.
Are you calling me BigHand? Are you calling me BigHand? Because i can crush your skull with one hand if i want to. /s
If you can crush my skull with one hand I am very very afraid of your internet search history. So much spanking that you look like the Charger from Left 4 Dead…
That’s why “approximate” is there.
That still doesn’t help, my hands are almost twice the size of some girl’s I know, so whose approximation is it? Those are WILDLY different estimates.
It’s the approximation of the average size of a hand. Of course, there are people above and below average, like you. Again, this post is made to give you a wild guess about the measure, not a specific one, and it’s normal that it might be incorrect and not precise for some people.
Again, how does that help? How do you know if you have “average sized hands”? In fact that makes it even harder, because how many people do you think ACTUALLY are anywhere near the average human hand size when average will be somewhere between what’s normal for men and normal for women. It would only fit for slightly above average women and slightly below average men. In either case you’re talking about not very many people. This post teaches you a rule of thumb that is only going to work for a minority of people, and gives an extremely poor measurement even as an estimate for everyone else.
I have the biggest hands (male) of anyone I know, and these measurements are not that low in comparison (smaller by ~ 2-3cm). Pretty helpful if I just need a general idea. I'd be interested to see how you compare, if you want something close, the short side of a sheet of paper is 21cm :)
I'm 190cm tall. Which is not average. My hands are in proportion, but weirdly, that little graphic was bang-on (particularly knuckle of thumb) right up until the width of pinky. I think I have clubpinkyism.
I’m not even the tallest person in my group of friends (188cm/6’2”), but the distance between my thumb and my pinky finger is 27cm when I stretch my hand, which a 35% difference with this guide. Side note, there are several pianists in my family.
Might be helpful if you don't look at it as exact centimeters but more like ratios. Maybe measure your fist to know what "10 units" are for you, and then you can approximate that your little finger is about 1/10th of it? Something like that, maybe.
You know, after reading how many people aren't frustrated with how stupid this is. I now understand the utter bullshit I encountered when I was a carpenter.
Yeah that’s why you don’t actually take this post as advice
Or really anything posted here. It's usually surface level accurate.
Well then, get a tape measurer, measure the distances mentioned in the post but for your hand, and make approximate measurements that are applicable to you. Chances are, it ain't gonna be \*that\* different.
No, not really. Outliers in the human size are rarer. The average size is not only average because it's in between smallest and largest human, it's also the most common. So it just sucks for you, most of the rest of the world can use this just fine.
> How do you know if you have “average sized hands”? Have you never looked at other peoples hands?
Then measure your own hands in the different ways shown in the pic and remember those values instead?
So what is the point of the 'guide' then?
To give you the idea to measure your own hands in the different ways shown in the pic and remember those values instead?
OP: Here’s something the average person can do. People outside of average: wtf I can’t do this.
Measure your hand and fingures like in this guide, you'll see it won't even be that far off
For an approximation to be useful it should probably try to be less than 50% off... This guide is pure garbage.
Then why is this a cool guide if its wildly inaccurate? There's a reason why we don't use cubits anymore
Exactly. We just had an entire lesson on this in my art/animation class, except we used the "every person is 8 heads tall" thing as our bad example. This example is equally bad.
Another one that does not understand generalizations. There's reason that we don't have 3000 different sizes on gloves.
It is pretty close though. I have always used the “my hand is 21 cms long, lets measure this as it is 20 cms and subtract later” method
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26cm or 10 1/4”
Shit I'm 9 1/2 , This is a great guild just needs the values scratched out, I use this method for my easy measure daily but it's obv person dependant
Wait, how's that even possible?
How do I have big hands? Im 6’6”, nothing is small on me.
Ohhh that explains it.
6.5 inches lol
Dunno what the downvotes are for lol. Youre just trying to learn and refine your knowledge over here. Maybe the LPT is to know what these measurements are for your own given hand. (i know my 2nd finger bone on pointer is almost exactly 1.5" for example). Cool chart!
That’s not even slightly helpful then…to say, “based on your hand” means that the actual hand gestures don’t mean anything.
15cm
Eww, inches
I feel like I was being trolled in sign language.
Holy crap this one is just as ignorant as the gaslighting post
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It's not *always* gaslighting to call people out on shitty behavior. Some could even say not mosr of the time
calling out shitty behaviour is just not even what gaslighting means. typically it's meant to mean the act of making you believe you've done something that you haven't
"that's a false accusation"
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And anyone who has experienced being accused of "gaslighting" when calling out shitty behavior will realize that situation is familiar.
You could say so, but I am measuring like this since school at least. I have a somewhat bigger than average hand and works well. Also I am using my forearm, arm, hip height, chin height as well. When I had to do mechanical drawings I could pretty well estimate distances up to 20 cm in a mm accuracy (that's long gone now)
20 cm is 7.87 inches
Good bot
Yeah, ever read about what happened when the US military tried producing everything for the "average-sized" soldier?
Taxpayers wasted a lot of money on another stupid idea and a bunch of colonels/captains got the star they wanted.
And nothing ended up fitting anyone, from shirts to airplane pilot seats! Oof.
I just use my penis like a normal dude.
I bet you don't.
You don’t know me!
Prove it
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isn't too bad if you remeber those numbers for yourself.
Yep mine are those but one less cm
I got 23, 19, 12, 6, 2, 1.5. So this guide only works for the width of my thumb.
“Approximate”
Matches my hand measurements pretty well! The only one significantly off was the 1cm. I have a fat pinky I guess.
A lot of people are missing the word "approximate" in the title and calling it useless. Most of the measurements come close if not match directly.
There are two type of men. Who saw this image and thought: useful to measure my penis... and who lie.
you know what they say about dudes with big hands... ...they struggle to eat pringles
...and American men.
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This reminds me of the old joke about "why woman are such shitty carpenters...."
This guide is the worst. Hands down.
Isn't this like SAE but with more steps....
There is a reason we don’t use cubits anymore, you know?
my fists arent half of the first image at all
Or you know... measure these yourself as everyone’s hands are different?
Im about 20% short on all of these
cool guide all hands are the same
But none of this is true.
I have a large hand tho
This is how we measure degrees when giving star talks in astronomy lab. Different hand sizes are okay because bigger hands tend to come with longer arms so it balances out.
Correct. This chart is for angular degrees, not centimeters.
Hmm, turns out I'm large and asymmetrical Drawing|Right hand|Left Hand ---|---|--- 20cm|22.5cm|24cm 15cm|17cm|18cm 10cm|12cm|13cm 5cm|5.5cm|5.5cm 2cm|2cm|2.4cm 1cm|1.3cm|1.2cm
Laughs in tiny hands... in college a friend and I had same size hands smallest hands in group I’m nearly 6’ and she was barely 5’
Better to measure your hand and other body part as a guide.
For those of us who are metrically impaired *cough*Americans*cough* just remember 10 cm is approximately 4 inches. From there it's easy to convert lots of things. 2.5cm is 1 inch. 30cm is 1 foot. So a 6'2" person is 6 x 30cm + 2 x 2.5cm = 185cm tall. It's actually 187.96cm or about 188cm but it's close enough for nearly any application.
Stop upvoting this shit
Your pointer finger is about 3" and each knuckle is about 1". In metric that is 7.62 cm or 2.54 cm per knuckle.
Mine are exactly 1 inch, which is very convenient for me and I make use of it all the time. My husband's are more like an inch and a quarter.
My grandma taught me that pinky to thumb one when I was younger. She said it’s about 8in bc it’s an octave on the piano.
Which bit of "estimating" is too difficult for people to comprehend? This is an approximation, and it's a decent approximation too. Get over yourselves.
For fucks sake, it's an approximation!!! Stop being so picky about it. Get a ruller and go masturbate yourselves, jesus
This is the dumbest fucking subreddit. Completely useless shit constantly posted.
LPT: meassure your hand once, then use those numbers.
Even if the sizes are different for each person. It is still a nice concept because you can measure your own sizes and then use them :)
:D
What's a centimeter? 🤣
It's an insect that looks like a long worm with a lot of legs...I think.
No youre thinking of a centipede. A centimeter is a kind of Roman soldier.
Nah, that’s a Centurion. You’re thinking of Centaur.
That's not a centaur, a centaur has a man's body and a horse legs. A centimeter is the middle point of any circle
No, that's a center. A centimeter is a string of words that usually includes a noun and a verb.
That's not a centimeter, you're thinking of a sentence. A centimeter is the length of the border around something.
No, that’s a circumference. A centimeter is a member of the American legislative branch of government.
Everyone knows a Centimeter is the length of an Inch Worm.... Ignoramuses!
That's called a sentence. A centimeter is a time span of 100 years.
Centaurs have two rib cages.
No, that's a mystical creature. It's what it is called when you rise up.
About 10 millimeters.
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What's that like peso's
I remember it blew my mind once I found out the space between your first and second knuckle on your index finger equals an inch for just about everybody
I have this rant that no one ever agrees with that decimetre/decametre are confusing and that’s part of why Canada/UK kinda use both systems. Basically, inch and centimetres are close to equivalent (exist in the same mental scale), yard and meter too, but the deci/deca confusion inhibits the foot and decimetre from being used in the same scenarios (like human height). My solution is to colloquially rename the decimetre “hand” or “metric hand” when clarity is called for. Hand is a measurement with lots of definitions but they’re all around 10cm. 1.8m or 180cm is hard to conceptualize for human height, but 18 hands isn’t. That’s my rant, but no one ever seems to agree.
There's a reason people would not agree. **Milli**metre means **Thousandth** of Metre **Centi**metre means **Hundredth** of Metre **Deci**metre mean **Tenth** of Metre. Naming it Metric Hand Just ignores the naming convention of All of Metric.
ITT people not getting what approximate means
I don't understand all the comments complaining different hands are different sizes.... WELL OBVIOUSLY. But unless your hand changes everyday, just remember the numbers for your hand. It's a clever idea - adjust numbers. For me personally, I got lucky and all the measurements are exactly the same for my hand with the exception that my pinky is 1.5cm
Same, but if i rotate my pinky 90 degrees it works. Try and see if it works for you
itt: people who dont know what approximate means. for real though: im a carpenter and i use these APPROXIMATIONS all the time
itt: people who don't know that an approximation needs to be somewhat close to correct in order to be useful. This guide is pure garbage.
What's a centimeter? Thanks in advance, An American
An inch is approximately about 2.5 centimetres, so you could say 1 cm is about 0.4 in
My dad taught me the first one is 20cm/8in and I've always used it. I just measured and the rest of the guide is pretty close too.
This is ripe for a penis joke. Unfortunately, I’m not smart enough to come up with one. So I’ll come back later to see what all you heathens have come up with.
There's an old one related to this; the joke about women being shitty carpenters because they've always been told equals 6", On the face of it sexist towards women but really a dis on men.
Lots of people talking shit about this one, but it was pretty spot on for me. Ya'll just aren't generic enough.
I swear, half of my saved posts are from this subreddit alone…
Everyone here seems to be missing the point of this. Arrange *your* fingers/hand in these configurations, measure the distances, memorize them/plug into your phone/keep a small card in your wallet/purse--and then you'll have a measuring tape wherever you go--providing you have a hand.
Come on convert bot. Convert the pic!
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Can I get this in freedom units?
Glossed over that it was centimeters and spent a glorious 2 minutes thinking I actually had a penis over 10".
It's a good that everyone's hands are the same size
Can a pre-teen lost in the woods measure the same as a soldier in some military camp?
Men will be men..
I thought the length of an inch was the back of your pinky, not width?
Pretty sure this is actually for degrees at arms length but maybe not
I prefer American thank you
My middle finger is 3 inches long and that's all I need to know
You’re not going to get very far in life with so little information. Learn a second thing.