What is "pound"

Pound \Pound\, v. i.

1. To strike heavy blows; to beat.

2. (Mach.) To make a jarring noise, as in running; as, the engine pounds.

Pound \Pound\, n. [AS. pund an inclosure: cf. forpyndan to turn away, or to repress, also Icel. pynda to extort, torment, Ir. pont, pond, pound. Cf. Pinder, Pinfold, Pin to inclose, Pond.]

1. An inclosure, maintained by public authority, in which cattle or other animals are confined when taken in trespassing, or when going at large in violation of law; a pinfold.
   --Shak.

2. A level stretch in a canal between locks.

3. (Fishing) A kind of net, having a large inclosure with a narrow entrance into which fish are directed by wings spreading outward.

   Pound covert, a pound that is close or covered over, as a shed.

   Pound overt, a pound that is open overhead.

Pound \Pound\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Pounded; p. pr. & vb. n. Pounding.] [OE. pounen, AS. punian to bruise. Cf. Pun a play on words.]

1. To strike repeatedly with some heavy instrument; to beat.

   With cruel blows she pounds her blubbered cheeks.
   --Dryden.

2. To comminute and pulverize by beating; to bruise or break into fine particles with a pestle or other heavy instrument; as, to pound spice or salt.

Pound \Pound\, v. t. To confine in, or as in, a pound; to impound.
--Milton.

Pound \Pound\, n.; pl. Pounds, collectively Pound or Pounds. [AS. pund, fr. L. pondo, akin to pondus a weight, pendere to weigh. See Pendant.]

1. A certain specified weight; especially, a legal standard consisting of an established number of ounces.

   Note: The pound in general use in the United States and in England is the pound avoirdupois, which is divided into sixteen ounces, and contains 7,000 grains. The pound troy is divided into twelve ounces, and contains 5,760 grains. 144 pounds avoirdupois are equal to 175 pounds troy weight. See Avoirdupois, and Troy.

2. A British denomination of money of account, equivalent to twenty shillings sterling, and equal in value to about $4.86. There is no coin known by this name, but the gold sovereign is of the same value.

   Note: The pound sterling was in Saxon times, about a. d. 671, a pound troy of silver, and a shilling was its twentieth part; consequently the latter was three times as large as it is at present.
   --Peacham.

measure of weight, Old English pund "pound" (in weight or money), also "pint," from Proto-Germanic *punda- "pound" as a measure of weight (source of Gothic pund, Old High German phunt, German Pfund, Middle Dutch pont, Old Frisian and Old Norse pund), early borrowing from Latin pondo "pound," originally in libra pondo "a pound by weight," from pondo (adv.) "by weight," ablative of *pondus "weight" (see span (v.)). Meaning "unit of money" was in Old English, originally "pound of silver."\n

\nAt first "12 ounces;" meaning "16 ounces" was established before late 14c. Pound cake (1747) so called because it has a pound, more or less, of each ingredient. Pound of flesh is from "Merchant of Venice" IV.i. The abbreviations lb., £ are from libra, and reflect the medieval custom of keeping accounts in Latin.

"enclosed place for animals," late 14c., from a late Old English word attested in compounds (such as pundfald "penfold, pound"), related to pyndan "to dam up, enclose (water)," and thus from the same root as pond. Ultimate origin unknown; some sources indicate a possible root *bend meaning "protruding point" found only in Celtic and Germanic.

"hit repeatedly," from Middle English pounen, from Old English punian "crush, pulverize, beat, bruise," from West Germanic *puno- (cognates: Low German pun, Dutch puin "fragments"). With intrusive -d- from 16c. Sense of "beat, thrash" is from 1790. Related: Pounded; pounding.

Etymology 1 n. 1 A unit of mass equal to 16 avoirdupois ounces (= 453.592 37 g). Today this value is the most common meaning of "pound" as a unit of weight. 2 A unit of mass equal to 12 troy weights (≈ 373.242 g). Today, this is a common unit of weight when measuring precious metals, and is little used elsewhere. 3 (context US English) The symbol (unsupported: #) (octothorpe, hash) 4 The unit of currency used in the United Kingdom and its dependency. It is divided into 100 pence. 5 Any of various units of currency used in Cyprus, Egypt, Lebanon, and formerly in the Republic of Ireland and Israel. 6 Any of various units of currency formerly used in the United States. 7 (plural of pound nodot=1 English)Category:English plurals (unit of currency) 8 Abbreviation for pound-force, a unit of force/weight. Using this abbreviation to describe pound-force is inaccurate and unscientific. Etymology 2

n. 1 A place for the detention of stray or wandering animals. 2 A place for the detention of automobiles that have been illegally parked, abandoned, etc. 3 The part of a canal between two locks, and therefore at the same water level. 4 A kind of fishing net, having a large enclosure with a narrow entrance into which fish are directed by wings spreading outward. vb. To confine in, or as in, a pound; to impound. Etymology 3

alt. (label en transitive) To strike hard, usually repeatedly. n. A hard blow. vb. (label en transitive) To strike hard, usually repeatedly.

1. n. 16 ounces; "he tried to lift 100 pounds" [syn: lb]

2. the basic unit of money in Great Britain; equal to 100 pence [syn: British pound, pound sterling, quid]

3. the basic unit of money in Syria; equal to 100 piasters [syn: Syrian pound]

4. the basic unit of money in the Sudan; equal to 100 piasters [syn: Sudanese pound]

5. the basic unit of money in Lebanon; equal to 100 piasters [syn: Lebanese pound]

6. formerly the basic unit of money in Ireland; equal to 100 pence [syn: Irish pound, Irish punt, punt]

7. the basic unit of money in Egypt; equal to 100 piasters [syn: Egyptian pound]

8. the basic unit of money in Cyprus; equal to 100 cents [syn: Cypriot pound]

9. a nontechnical unit of force equal to the mass of 1 pound with an acceleration of free fall equal to 32 feet/sec/sec [syn: lbf.]

10. United States writer who lived in Europe; strongly influenced the development of modern literature (1885-1972) [syn: Ezra Pound, Ezra Loomis Pound]

11. a public enclosure for stray or unlicensed dogs; "unlicensed dogs will be taken to the pound" [syn: dog pound]

12. the act of pounding (delivering repeated heavy blows); "the sudden hammer of fists caught him off guard"; "the pounding of feet on the hallway" [syn: hammer, hammering, pounding]

1. v. hit hard with the hand, fist, or some heavy instrument; "the salesman pounded the door knocker"; "a bible-thumping Southern Baptist" [syn: thump, poke]

2. strike or drive against with a heavy impact; "ram the gate with a sledgehammer"; "pound on the door" [syn: ram, ram down]

3. move heavily or clumsily; "The heavy man lumbered across the room" [syn: lumber]

4. move rhythmically; "Her heart was beating fast" [syn: beat, thump]

5. partition off into compartments; "The locks pound the water of the canal" [syn: pound off]

6. shut up or confine in any enclosure or within any bounds or limits; "The prisoners are safely pounded" [syn: pound up]

7. place or shut up in a pound; "pound the cows so they don't stray" [syn: impound]

8. break down and crush by beating, as with a pestle; "pound the roots with a heavy flat stone"

The pound or pound-mass (abbreviations: lb, lb, lbm, ℔) is a unit of mass used in the imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement. A number of different definitions have been used, the most common today being the international avoirdupois pound which is legally defined as exactly , and which is divided into 16 avoirdupois ounces.

The unit is descended from the Roman libra (hence the abbreviation "lb"). The English word pound is cognate with, among others, German Pfund, Dutch pond, and Swedish pund. All ultimately derive from a borrowing into Proto-Germanic of the Latin expression lībra pondō ("a pound by weight"), in which the word pondō is the ablative case of the Latin noun pondus ("weight").

Usage of the unqualified term pound reflects the historical conflation of mass and weight. This accounts for the modern distinguishing terms pound-mass and pound-force.

The pound is a unit of currency in some nations. The term originated in Great Britain as the value of a pound (weight) of silver.

The English word pound is cognate with, among others, German Pfund, Dutch pond, and Swedish pund. All ultimately derive from a borrowing into Proto-Germanic of the Latin expression lībra pondō ("a pound by weight"), in which the word pondō is the ablative case of the Latin noun pondus ("weight"). The English word "pound" first referred to a unit of mass or weight; the monetary pound originated as a pound (by weight) of silver.

The currency's symbol is £, a stylised representation of the letter L, standing for livre or lira. Historically, £1 worth of silver coins were a troy pound in weight; in April 2011 this amount of silver was worth approximately £300 sterling.

Today, the term may refer to a number of (primarily British and related) currencies and a variety of obsolete currencies. Some of them, those official in former Italian states and in countries formerly belonging to the Ottoman Empire, are called pound in English, while in the local languages their official name is lira.

The pound-force (symbol: lb, or lbf) is a unit of force used in some systems of measurement including English Engineering units and the British Gravitational System. Pound force should not to be confused with foot-pounds or pound-feet, which are units of torque, and may be written as "lb·ft" or "lb·ft". They should not be confused with avoirdupois pound (symbol: lb), often simply called pounds, which are a unit of mass.

Pound (later Flywheel) was an American rock band from Poughkeepsie, New York.

Pound is a 1970 film directed and written by Robert Downey, Sr., it was based on The Comeuppance, an Off-Off Broadway play written by Downey in 1961. It is about several dogs, along with a Siamese cat and a penguin, at a pound, as they await being euthanised; the animals are played by human actors. It was the film debut of Robert Downey, Jr., the director's 5-year-old son, as a puppy.

Pound is a lightweight open source reverse proxy program and application firewall suitable to be used as a web server load balancing solution. Developed by an IT security company, it has a strong emphasis on security. The original intent on developing Pound was to allow distributing the load among several Zope servers running on top of ZEO (Zope Extensible Object). However, Pound is not limited to Zope-based installations. Using regular expression matching on the requested URLs, Pound can pass different kinds of requests to different backend server groups. A few more of its most important features:

• detects when a backend server fails or recovers, and bases its load balancing decisions on this information: if a backend server fails, it will not receive requests until it recovers
• decrypts https requests to http ones
• IPv6 support
• can load balance from IPv6 clients to IPv4 servers and vice versa
• rejects incorrect requests
• can be used in a chroot environment
• has no special requirements concerning which web server software or browser to use
• supports virtual hosts
• Server Name Indication (SNI) for SSL/TLS certificate negotiation
• configurable

Pound is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License and can be used free of charge even in business environments.

Pound is a Toronto-based hip hop magazine that is distributed for free across Canada. Founded in 1998 and beginning publication in December 1999, Pound is published quarterly. As of July 2009, the magazine had published 42 issues.

Pound or Pounds may refer to:

Pound is the surname of:

• Albert Pound (1831-?), American politician and businessman
• Cuthbert Winfred Pound (1864–1935), American lawyer and politician from New York
• Dick Pound (born 1942), Canadian lawyer
• Dudley Pound (1877–1943), British naval officer
• Ezra Pound (1885–1972), American expatriate poet and critic
• Glenn Simpson Pound (1914-2010), American educator
• James Pound (1669–1724), English clergyman and astronomer
• Jessie Brown Pounds (1861–1921), American writer of gospel songs
• Louise Pound (1872–1958), American folklorist and college professor
• Omar Pound (1926–2010), Anglo-American writer, teacher, and translator
• Robert Pound (1919–2010), American physicist
• Roscoe Pound (1870–1964), American legal scholar and educator
• Stephen Pound (born 1948), British Labour Party politician
• Stephen Bosworth Pound (1833–1911), lawyer, senator and judge
• Thaddeus C. Pound (1833–1914), American politician and businessman, brother of Albert Pound and grandfather of Ezra Pound