noun
An English unit of length equal to 1/12 of a foot or 2.54 cm, conceived as roughly the width of a thumb.
The sledges of the Esquimaux are of large size, varying from six and a half to nine and even eleven feet in length, and from eighteen inches to two feet in breadth.
The term "precision measurement" […] refers to the art of reproducing and controlling dimensions expressed in thousandths of an inch or smaller.
Any very short distance.
Don't move an inch!
Beldame, I think we watched you at an inch.
Any of various similar units of length in other traditional systems of measurement.
A depth of one inch on the ground, used as a measurement of rainfall.
Let us consider what one inch of rain really means. If an acre of land were covered with water to the depth of only the tenth part of an inch, that layer of water would weigh more than 10 tons: thus 1 inch of rain is ten times that amount—in fact, very nearly 101 tons.
A depth of one inch in a glass, used as a rough measurement of alcoholic beverages.
verb
To advance very slowly, or by a small amount (in a particular direction).
Fearful of falling, he inched along the window ledge.
On reaching the section under construction they must be capable of inching the train forward on rough track up gradients as steep as 1 in 30.
To drive by inches, or small degrees.
He gets too far into the soldier's grace / And inches out my master.
To deal out by inches; to give sparingly.
noun
A small island; an islet.
The blackening wave is edged with white; / To inch and rock the sea-mews fly.
A meadow, pasture, field, or haugh.
An ivy-clad farmhouse surrounded by trees, it stood on the sunny side of a sloping hill at the foot of which the Darigle river curved its way through gold-furzed inches to disappear under a stone bridge into the woods beyond.
As these calves grew older they did not need to return to the farmyard for feeding as they were able to eat sufficient grass for themselves. They were then kept in the fields, known as the inches, along by the river[,] where they grew strong[,] and during the winter cold when grass was scarce[,] hay was carried down to them.