Word To Use Today: furlong.

A furlong is the distance an ox team can pull a plough before it needs to have a rest.

That distance is equivalent to 220 yards, or about 201.168 metres - though in practice the conversion to metres doesn't work that accurately as surveyors in various parts of the world use slightly different conversion tables. 

Furlongs aren't used very much nowadays. About the only time you'll hear the word used is describing distances in horse races (and even there, Australia has gone metric); but grid system towns in North America were quite often laid out using furlong measurements, and on the London Underground railway and along British canals furlongs are still sometimes used.

Myanmar roads have signs in miles and furlongs, too.

I feel rather nostalgic for furlongs, and I think I might use them to  measure my walks. A furlong must be about 260 steps. I wonder if there's a pedometer that would do the sums for me?

Word To Use Today: furlong. This word comes from the two Old English words furh, furrow, and lang, long. A furlong is an eighth of a mile and about a fifth of a kilometre. A furlong used to be 600 feet, but then the size of the foot measurement was changed and now it's 660 feet; but the furlong is still the same actual length because this wasn't done until the 1200s, long after field and property boundaries had been laid down in Britain.