hundredweight

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   in the United States, a unit of weight equal to 100 pounds, or about 45.36 kilograms

   The farm sold grain by the hundredweight rather than by the individual sack.

2. 2
   noun

   in Britain, a traditional imperial unit equal to 112 pounds, or about 50.80 kilograms

   The old shipping ledger recorded the cargo in long tons and hundredweights.

A compound of hundred + weight, recorded from the sixteenth century. The name became numerically ambiguous: the American short hundredweight contains 100 pounds, while the British long hundredweight contains 112 pounds.

Topics