Avoirdupois
avoirdupois weight.
Informal. bodily weight:
He carries around a lot of excess avoirdupois.
Contemporary Examples
Its owner seems to take as much pride in her bones as the big girls of Rubens could take in their avoirdupois.
Skin, Bones and Beauty Blake Gopnik August 14, 2012
Historical Examples
She had so far successfully fought down an hereditary tendency to avoirdupois.
By the Light of the Soul Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
A single pair has been known to weigh as much as 60 pounds avoirdupois!
The Hunters’ Feast Mayne Reid
The common weight is the pecul, of one hundred and thirty-three and a third pounds, avoirdupois, divided into one hundred catties.
Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat Edmund Roberts
Estimate the value of Westminster Abbey in the avoirdupois measure.
Hieroglyphics Arthur Machen
With the avoirdupois of Miss Jolliboy, life would appear a desert.
Vagabondia Frances Hodgson Burnett
Coal is measured by the ton of two thousand pounds avoirdupois.
Foods and Household Management Helen Kinne
The weight of the amyloid liver may reach ten, twelve, even sixteen pounds avoirdupois.
A System of Practical Medicine By American Authors, Vol. II Various
We have in fact two kinds of weight measure—troy and avoirdupois.
Carpentry and Woodwork Edwin W. Foster
Or all that we call logic and reasoning ends up as sheer preponderance of avoirdupois.
The Book of the Damned Charles Fort
noun
a system of weights used in many English-speaking countries. It is based on the pound, which contains 16 ounces or 7000 grains. 100 pounds (US) or 112 pounds (Brit) is equal to 1 hundredweight and 20 hundredweights equals 1 ton Abbreviation avdp, avoir
n.
1650s, misspelling of Middle English avoir-de-peise (c.1300), from Old French avoir de pois “goods of weight,” from aveir “property, goods” (noun use of aveir “have”) + peis “weight,” from Latin pensum, neuter of pendere “to weigh” (see pendant (n.)). After late 15c., the standard system of weights used in England for all goods except precious metals, precious stones, and medicine.
avoirdupois av·oir·du·pois (āv’ər-də-poiz’)
n.
Avoirdupois weight.
interjection
A comment protesting that one has heard or had enough or a bit too much
[fr Yiddish, translating genuk shoyn]
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