ligne

For the French river of the same name see Ligne River. The ligne (from the French word meaning "line") is a unit of length that was in use prior to the French adaptation of the metric system in the late 1700s, and is still used by French and Swiss wristwatch makers to measure the size of a watch movement. (For example, Girard-Perregaux will introduce a new 12 ligne chronograph movement.) In this usage there are 12 ligne to one French inch (pouce). The standardized conversion for a ligne is 2.2558291 mm (1 mm = 0.443296 ligne), and it is abbreviated with the letter L or represented by the triple prime, ′′′.
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Noun
1. a linear unit (1/40 inch) used to measure diameter of buttons
(hypernym) linear unit
(part-holonym) inch, in

n. line; styling, design; figure, hand

v. line, mark with a line or lines