A "smoot" is a nonstandard unit of measure. A recognizable equivalent is 5 feet, 7 inches, the height of Oliver R. Smoot at the time the measurement in question took place. The (perhaps unique) use of the unit is in specifying the length of the Harvard Bridge, which spans the Charles River between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Read the full story here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot.
The individual to whom the surname belongs later became the chairman of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and then the president of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), two organizations with working groups on which I had the pleasure of serving.
smoot
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