Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
abbreviation of ounce (n.1), 1540s, from Italian oz. (15c.), abbreviation of onza.
WordNet
n. a unit of weight equal to one sixteenth of a pound or 16 drams or 28.349 grams [syn: ounce]
Usage examples of "oz.".
Run a full range of sensor scans on the planet below, Oz. But very carefully.
The solution, moreover, in these experiments was diluted in the proportion of one part of the salt to 2,187,500 of water, or one grain to 5000 oz. The reader will perhaps best realise this degree of dilution by remembering that 5000 oz.
Again, two of the leaves in the solution of one grain to 3000 oz., and three of the leaves in the solution of one grain to 5000 oz.
Two leaves were immersed in a weak solution of two drops to 1 oz., or 437 grains, of water.
For a second or two we were swirling around in the funnel of a tornado, like Dorothy Gale, only she had a house all around her when she took off for Oz. Something bumped me in the side, hard.