schene

An Egyptian or Persian measure of length, varying from thirty-two to sixty stadia.

Noun

  1. An Egyptian or Persian measure of length, varying from thirty-two to sixty stadia.
    • Herodotus has fixed the measure of the schene, in Lower Egypt, at four miles, or a league and a quarter. - 1786, Mr. Savary, “Letters on Egypt”, in The Critical Review, Or, Annals of Literature, volume 62, page 440:
    • With regard to the extent of this lake, we recur again to the testimonies above cited: Herodotus says, that the circumference of the lake Mœris was 3600 stadia, or sixty schenes, which, says the historian, form the...
    • We embarked, we parted; we were not long in arriving at the north of Coptos, the distance of a schene. - 1917, Charles Francis Horne, The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, volume 2:

Origin

From Latin schoenus, from Ancient Greek σχοῖνος (skhoînos, “a rush, a reed, a land measure”).

Forms

schenes schoene schœne