[f. YARD sb.2 + MEASURE sb.] A rod, bar, or tape for mcasuring by the yard (but not necessarily restricted to that length).
1831–4. R. S. Surtees, Jorrocks’s Jaunts (1838), 192. A silk yard-measure in a walnut-shell.
1850. Dickens, Dav. Copp., ii. I … looked … at the little bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread— … at the little house with a thatched roof, where the yard-measure lived; at her work-box with a sliding lid.
