The teacher used a wooden yardstick to measure the length of the table.

yardstick 是由 yard（码，英制长度单位，约0.914米）和 stick（棍子）组成的复合词，字面意思是"标有码刻度的棍子"，即"码尺"，常用来测量长度或作为衡量标准。