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Weight/Mass | Convert from ton [short] to pound |
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All Weight Conversions Metric Weight Conversions Unit Definition (ton [short]) The ton is a traditional unit of weight equal to 20 hundredweight. In the United States and Canada, there are 100 pounds in the hundredweight and exactly 2000 pounds (907.185 kilograms) in the ton. In Britain, there are 112 pounds in the hundredweight and 2240 pounds (1016.047 kilograms) in the ton. To distinguish between the two units, the British ton is called the long ton and the American one is the short ton. In old England, a "tun" was a large cask used to store wine. Because these tuns were of standard size, more or less, the tun came to represent both a volume unit, indicating the capacity of a cask, and also a weight unit, indicating the weight of a cask when it was full. Unit Definition (pound) The pound is a traditional unit of mass or weight. The Romans used a pound (the libra pondo, "pound of weight") divided into 12 ounces. All the countries of western Europe used similar units, divided into 12 or 16 ounces, until the advent of the metric system. 12-ounce pounds were common in Italy and southern France, but in Spain and northern Europe 16-ounce pounds became the norm. The word libra is used for this unit in Italy, Spain, and Portugal; in France it is called the livre. Further north, the Latin word pondo ("weight") is the origin of the names of the English pound, Dutch pond, Danish pund, German pfund, and Russian funt. In England, two different "pound" units became standard. The unit now in general use in the United States is the avoirdupois pound, so-called from a French phrase avoir du poids, literally "goods of weight," indicating simply that the goods were being sold by weight rather than by volume or by the piece. The avoirdupois pound is divided into 16 ounces. By international agreement, one avoirdupois pound is equal to exactly 453.592 37 grams; this is exactly 175/144 = 1.215 28 troy pounds.
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