An old unit of measurement equal to about 45 inches, or 1.14 meters; also the letter 'L' or something shaped like it.
From Old English 'eln,' related to Latin 'ulna' (elbow). The measurement was based on the length of a man's forearm, which is why it's an obsolete measurement today.
The ell is one of hundreds of body-based measurements humans used (foot, hand, pace, cubit), and the fact that we switched to standardized metric measurements shows how science eventually replaced the variable human body as our reference point.
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