Confusing use of くらい and の in this dictionary definition


A dictionary (三省堂の『例解小学国語辞典第5版』) definition of 棒:

> 持てるくらいの長さ **の** 、細長い木や竹や金属  
>  ???? long and thin wood, bamboo or metal.

I'm stumped on the first part of this definition. I have 持てるくらいの長さ = "Length
to the extent that it can possess". Possess what?

And what is the following の? My guess is that it marks possession, i.e. each
of wood, bamboo and metal have the property which is 持てるくらいの長さ. When I try and
put all this together I can't get anything that makes sense.

If I had to guess the meaning I'd have said it means "Wood that possesses
length" but I'd have written that as 長さを持っている木. Besides which, that's a
terrible definition. The key characteristic is that it is longer than it is
wide, but I can't see any way that it could mean that.




I wonder if the comma after の is throwing you off. Let's start with the second
part of the definition:

> 細長い木や竹や金属

I trust this is straightforward: Long and thin wood, bamboo, or metal.

When a noun is modified with の, as in XのY, it's often helpful to think of it
as "an X kind of Y." For example: 日本人の学生 is a student. What kind of student? A
Japanese student.

In this case, the modifier is:

> 持てるくらいの長さ

A length that you can hold. くらい here can be thought of as "to the extent that"
or "enough that", so you could also say in English, "long enough that one can
hold".

So to put it together:

> 持てるくらいの長さの、細長い木や竹や金属

Long-enough-that-one-can-hold long-and-thin wood, bamboo, or metal.

I'll leave the gloss into natural English up to you.




I wonder if the comma after の is throwing you off. Let's start with the second
part of the definition:

> 細長い木や竹や金属

I trust this is straightforward: Long and thin wood, bamboo, or metal.

When a noun is modified with の, as in XのY, it's often helpful to think of it
as "an X kind of Y." For example: 日本人の学生 is a student. What kind of student? A
Japanese student.

In this case, the modifier is:

> 持てるくらいの長さ

A length that you can hold. くらい here can be thought of as "to the extent that"
or "enough that", so you could also say in English, "long enough that one can
hold".

So to put it together:

> 持てるくらいの長さの、細長い木や竹や金属

Long-enough-that-one-can-hold long-and-thin wood, bamboo, or metal.

I'll leave the gloss into natural English up to you.

