OUNCE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Ounce

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noun

Ounce n.

A unit of mass or weight, the sixteenth part of a pound avoirdupois, and containing 28.35 grams or 437½ grains.

(Troy Weight) The twelfth part of a troy pound; one troy ounce weighs 31.103486 grams, 8 drams, or 480 grains. Note: The troy ounce contains twenty pennyweights, each of twenty-four grains, or, in all, 480 grains, and is the twelfth part of the troy pound. The troy ounce is also a weight in apothecaries' weight. Troy ounce is sometimes written as one word, troyounce.

Fig.: A small portion; a bit. (Obs.) "By ounces hung his locks that he had."

Fluid ounce. See under Fluid, n.

Ounce n. (Zool.) A feline quadruped (Felis irbis syn. Felis uncia) resembling the leopard in size, and somewhat in color, but it has longer and thicker fur, which forms a short mane on the back. The ounce is pale yellowish gray, with irregular dark spots on the neck and limbs, and dark rings on the body. It inhabits the lofty mountain ranges of Asia. Called also once.

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Etymology of 'Ounce'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Ounce" Quotes from Famous Books

... and that though it grows sixty miles from the sea, yet every morning it is covered with saline globules, which are hard and splendid, appearing at a distance like dew; and that each plant furnishes about an ounce of fine salt every day, which the peasants collect and use as common salt, but esteem it superior in flavour.—Notes to Darwin's ...

— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... any modern explorer to merriment; but such as they were I managed to do a good deal of execution with them. One of them was a single-barrelled, smooth bore, fitted for percussion caps—a roer we called it—which threw a three-ounce ball, and was charged with a handful of coarse black powder. Many is the elephant that I killed with that roer, although it generally knocked me backwards when I fired it, which I only did under compulsion. The best of the lot, perhaps, was a double-barrelled No. 12 shot-gun, but it had ...

— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard

... cripples; it's always young men who want to come for the night.... Why is that? And if they only wanted to warm themselves——But they are up to mischief. No, woman; there's no creature in this world as cunning as your female sort! Of real brains you've not an ounce, less than a starling, but for devilish slyness—oo-oo-oo! The Queen of Heaven protect us! There is the postman's bell! When the storm was only beginning I knew all that was in your mind. That's ...

— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Sha'abn,[FN286] and eyes like gazelles' eyne; and nose like the edge of scymitar fine and cheeks like anemones of blood-red shine; and mouth like Solomon's seal and sign and teeth like necklaces of pearls in line; and navel holding an ounce of oil of benzoin and waist more slender than his body whom love hath wasted and whom concealment hath made sick with pine and hind parts heavier than two hills of sand; briefly she was a volume of charms after his saying who ...

— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... coin is generally called by foreigners "ichibu," which means "one bu." To talk of "a hundred ichibus" is as though a Japanese were to say "a hundred one shillings." Four bus make a riyo>, or ounce; and any sum above three bus is spoken of as so many riyos and bus—as 101 riyos and three bus equal 407 bus. The bu is worth about ...

— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

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