HAND

A unit of measure equal to 4 inches, used to measure the height of a horse at the highest point of the withers. The number of whole hands is properly followed by a hyphen, then the remaining height in inches. Thus a horse who measures 5 feet and two inches at the withers would be designated "15-2 hands". This is sometimes written with a decimal point replacing the hyphen, which is inadvisable because the decimal point is, on some rare occasions, used to designate following tenths. Hence the 15-2 hand horse might also be designated either "15.2 hands" or "15.5 hands".