a. Measuring three inches in length, thickness, etc. (in first quot. humorous). Also in comb., as three-inch-thick, -wide. So Three-inched a. rare.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., IV. i. 27. Away you three inch foole, I am no beast.
1626. Capt. Smith, Accid. Yng. Seamen, 9. All the Orlope to be layd with square three inch plancke.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, etc., 927. A three-inch-thick plank.
1845. Stocqueler, Handbk. Brit. India (1854), 399. A formidable knife … tapering from a three-inched hilt to the finest point.
1846. J. Baxter’s Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4), I. 153. In Suffolk they are hoed … with three-inch hoes, having handles not above two feet in length.
