Quote Originally Posted by Throbert McGee View Post

косая сажень в плечах -- Apparently a sazhen' was roughly equivalent to an English "fathom" (~2 m), so the expression means очень широкоплечный, "very broad-shouldered". But what exactly is a косая сажень (lit., "a slanted sazhen'")? Apparently it was an "approximate fathom" measured from a man's left heel to the fingers of his stretched-out right hand.
Помимо косой сажени были и другие: