The Collaborative International Dictionary
Avoirdupois \Av`oir*du*pois"\ ([a^]v`[~e]r*d[-u]*poiz"), n. & a. [OE. aver de peis, goods of weight, where peis is fr. OF. peis weight, F. poids, L. pensum. See Aver, n., and Poise, n.]
Goods sold by weight. [Obs.]
Avoirdupois weight.
-
Weight; heaviness; as, a woman of much avoirdupois.
Avoirdupois weight, a system of weights by which coarser commodities are weighed, such as hay, grain, butter, sugar, tea.
Note: The standard Avoirdupois pound of the United States is equivalent to the weight of 27.7015 cubic inches of distilled water at 62[deg] Fahrenheit, the barometer being at 30 inches, and the water weighed in the air with brass weights. In this system of weights 16 drams make 1 ounce, 16 ounces 1 pound, 25 pounds 1 quarter, 4 quarters 1 hundred weight, and 20 hundred weight 1 ton. The above pound contains 7,000 grains, or 453.54 grams, so that 1 pound avoirdupois is equivalent to 1 31-144 pounds troy. (See Troy weight.) Formerly, a hundred weight was reckoned at 112 pounds, the ton being 2,240 pounds (sometimes called a long ton).
WordNet
n. a system of weights based on the 16-ounce pound (or 7,000 grains) [syn: avoirdupois]
Usage examples of "avoirdupois weight".
It proves that the dry and wet measures, the heavy and light weights, must have been original parts of the system they compose -- contrary to the opinion of the committee of 1757, 1758, who thought that the avoirdupois weight was not an ancient weight of the kingdom, nor ever even a legal weight, but during a single year of the reign of Henry VIII.
A more simple and rational method is to value the copper itself according to the present rate, and, after comparing the mint and the market price, the Roman and avoirdupois weight, the primitive as or Roman pound of copper may be appreciated at one English shilling, and the 100,000 asses of the first class amounted to 5000 pounds sterling.
Each bar is double the size of the one before you and contains four hundred Troy ounces, the avoirdupois weight being some twenty-seven and a half pounds.