A fall or fa’ a Scottish measurement of length. Other variants of the name include "faw", "faa" and "fa", the spelling with an apologetic apostrophe

Apologetic apostrophe

The apologetic or parochial apostrophe is the distinctive use of apostrophes in Modern Scots orthography. Apologetic apostrophes generally occurred where a consonant exists in the Standard English cognate, as in a , gi'e and wi .The practice, unknown in Older Scots, was introduced in the 18th...

 is not favoured now. The measurement was mostly out of use by the 19th century, and English measurements were imposed in 1824 by an act of parliament.

There were 320 falls in a Scots mile.

Equivalent to -

• Scottish measures
  Obsolete Scottish units of measurement
  Scotland had a distinct system of measures and weights until at least the late 18th century, based on the ell as a unit of length, the stone as a unit of mass and the boll and the firlot as units of dry measure...
  
  : 18 ft/6 ells
• Metric system
  Metric system
  The metric system is an international decimalised system of measurement. France was first to adopt a metric system, in 1799, and a metric system is now the official system of measurement, used in almost every country in the world...
  
  : 5.6479 metres
• Imperial system: 6.1766 yards/1.123 poles

See also

• Ell (Scots)
• Scottish inch
• Scots mile