Editing Hand (unit) (section)

==Terminology==
"Hands" may be abbreviated to "h", or "hh".  The "hh" form is sometimes interpreted as standing for "hands high".<ref>[http://www.allhorsebreeds.info/horse-terminology/horse-measurement-terms/108-how-big-is-a-hand.html "How big is a hand?"] ''AllHorseBreeds.info''. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120326132358/http://www.allhorsebreeds.info/horse-terminology/horse-measurement-terms/108-how-big-is-a-hand.html |date=2012-03-26 }}</ref><ref name=autogenerated2>[http://www.unitconversion.org/length/hand-conversion.html Hand Conversion]</ref><ref name=autogenerated1>{{Cite web |url=http://www.localriding.com/how-to-measure-a-horse.html |title=How to Measure a Horse {{!}} Horse Height and Weight |access-date=4 July 2011 |archive-date=21 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210421045441/https://www.localriding.com/how-to-measure-a-horse.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> When spoken aloud, hands are stated by numbers, 15.0 is  "fifteen hands", 15.2 is alternately "fifteen-two" or "fifteen hands, two inches", and so on.<ref name=autogenerated2 /><ref name=autogenerated1 /><ref name=shlei/>

To convert inches to hands, the number in inches is divided by four, then the remainder is added after the [[radix point]]. Thus, a horse that measures 60 inches is 15 hands high (15 × 4 = 60) and a horse halfway between 15 and 16 hands is 15.2 hands, or 62 inches tall (15 × 4 + 2 = 62)<ref name=autogenerated2 /><ref name=shlei/> Because the subdivision of a hand is a base 4 system, a horse 64 inches high is 16.0 hands high, not 15.4.<ref name=omafra/> A designation of "15.5 hands" is not halfway between 15 and 16 hands, but rather reads 15 hands and five inches, an impossibility in a base 4 radix numbering system, where a hand is four inches.<ref>[http://www.cowboyway.com/HowTo/HorseHeight.htm Measure Horse Height Accurately]</ref>