The etymology of the word as has long been a puzzle. Scholars starting with the assumption that as was the Roman abstract term for unity have accordingly searched for an appropriate derivation. Some have identified it with the Greek heis one ([Greek: eis] through a Tarentine [Greek: as]), whilst the most recent attempt connects it with the first syllable of elementum. The same principle has been carried out with regard to uncia, which has been treated simply as meaning unit and connected with unus and unicus.
Now it is notorious that the Roman mind was essentially concrete, and found great difficulty in arriving at abstract ideas, and consequently at abstract terms. This alone would make us hesitate to believe that as had originally begun as an abstract term meaning unit, and rather incline us to believe that it started in life as a name for some common concrete object. But we have seen above that the numerals in all languages seem originally to have meant certain actual physical objects which served as counters, such as the fingers and toes (decem [Greek: deka], digitus [Greek: daktylos]), seeds or pebbles. If such has been the origin of the various names for unit, we can hardly believe that any term for unity can have originated independently of some concrete object. To add to the mists which hang round the origin of the as, its division into 12 parts is taken to indicate a Babylonian source. Now the Roman foot was divided, not merely into 16 fingers like the Greek, but also into 12 unciae or inches like our own. The latter is most probably the true Italian system, as it is that found among their cousins and neighbours the Kelts, as well as amongst the Teutonic peoples. With ourselves still the rustic measures inches by his thumb, just as he measures feet by means of his own natural foot. The ancient Irish foot was divided into 12 thumbs or inches (ordlach, Lat. pollex, the initial p being lost in Irish)[1]. The Romans too (as did likewise the Teutonic peoples, e.g. Icelandic tomme, an inch) used the thumb (pollex) as the ordinary measure in practical life[2]. The division then into 12 unciae is simply the result of the fact that
