The foot is a unit of length in the British imperial and United States customary systems of measurement. The prime symbol, ′, is commonly used to represent the foot. In both customary and imperial units, one foot comprises 12 inches, and one yard comprises three feet. Since an international agreement in 1959, the foot is defined as equal to exactly 0.3048 meters.
A foot-long ruler
The unofficial public imperial measurement standards erected at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in the 19th century
Page from Austrian Lehrbuch des gesammten Rechnens für die vierte Classe der Hauptschulen in den k.k. Staaten – 1848 (Combined mathematics textbook for the fourth form of senior schools in the Imperial–royal states.)
A unit of measurement, or unit of measure, is a definite magnitude of a quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. Any other quantity of that kind can be expressed as a multiple of the unit of measurement.
The former Weights and Measures office in Seven Sisters, London
Units of measurement, Palazzo della Ragione, Padua
An example of metrication in 1860 when Tuscany became part of modern Italy (ex. one "libbra" = 339.54 grams)