"Avoirdupois" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you, and a few lines, if only to say you are well, will prevent unpleasant apprehensions. I am delighted at your increased bodily dimensions, and your diminished drapery. One hundred and twenty-eight avoirdupois is approximately a proper standard. Seven more pounds will make you all right. But I fear before I see you the unnatural life, which I fear you will lead in Baltimore, will reduce you to skin and bone. Do not go out to many parties, preserve ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... in adjusting their spectacles, hunting in the precise shelf for the precise quality demanded, then (quality found) the haggling as to quantum—considering whether it should be Apothecary's weight or Avoirdupois, or English measure or Flemish—and, finally, the hullaboloo they make if the customer is not perfectly satisfied with the monstrous little he gets for his money,—I don't wonder, for my part, how one loses ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... most articles used in cakes and pastry, a quart is generally about equal in quantity to a pound avoirdupois, (sixteen ounces.) Avoirdupois is the weight ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... Socialists, utterly corrupt and callous to the sufferings of the people. "Whenever an American is met abroad with the assertion that government in the Republic is corrupt, he can safely say that for one ounce of corruption in America there is a full pound avoirdupois in Britain."[578] "It is extremely doubtful, indeed, whether either slavery or the slave-trade would be abandoned in the British Empire if they still existed to-day, and their abrogation and suppression depended ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... look as if I had lost any avoirdupois," said Jack, glancing at his round limbs. "And when you give us a fling I seem to strike pretty hard, though in other respects I confess I do feel a good ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... is inclined to get into and out of psychological experiences quickly, so he is inclined to sudden illnesses and to sudden recuperations. A Thoracic seldom has any kind of chronic ailment. If he acquires a superabundance of avoirdupois he is in danger of apoplexy. The combination of extreme Thoracic and extreme Alimentive tendencies is the cause ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... "bahare," "bare," and "vare." Its value varies in different localities, there being two distinct weights—one, the great bahar, used for weighing cloves, other spices, etc.; and the small bahar, about 150 kilos or 400 pounds avoirdupois, used for weighing quicksilver, various metals, certain drugs, etc. John Saris, writing of the commerce of Bantam, says: "A sacke is called a Timbang, and two Timbanges is one Peecull, three Peeculls is a small bahar, and foure Peeculls and an halfe a great ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... instead of frowsing up here all the afternoon with your books, you should have been on the touch-line watching those Biffenites at their new tricks. Your opinion then would have a little avoirdupois. As it is, you Perry Exhibit, it is ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... brawn. It was undoubtedly true that, taken as a whole, the home players did outweigh the visitors. This might prove of advantage to them in certain mass plays, where their machine could mow down all opposition through sheer avoirdupois. But, on the other hand, it is not always given to the heaviest team to win. Speed counts for more than heft in many of the fiercest struggles that take place on the gridiron; and a fellow who can run like the wind, and dodge all interference, is more likely to bring his side success than the slower ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... which lies before us better than by saying that it consists of about two thousand closely printed quarto pages, that it occupies fifteen hundred inches cubic measure, and that it weighs sixty pounds avoirdupois. Such a book might, before the deluge, have been considered as light reading by Hilpa and Shallum. But unhappily the life of man is now three-score years and ten; and we cannot but think it somewhat unfair in Dr. Nares to demand from us so large a portion ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... logy, lazy beeves, while the boys quietly rode round, silently moving them together as instructed. Siringo drove to their lead, and halting, we allowed the cattle to loiter past us on either side of the conveyance. It was an easy herd to show, for the pounds avoirdupois were there. Numerous big steers, out of pure curiosity, came up near the vehicle and innocently looked at us as if expecting a dole or sweetmeat. A snap of the finger would turn them, showing their rounded buttocks, and they would rejoin the guard of honor. If eyes could speak, the invitation was ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... gaining such control of the medium that the subject-matter, or idea, may be fully and perfectly expressed. Ideas are the only substantial things in the universe, and that there is a difference in the quality of ideas need not be argued. Two men of the same avoirdupois may be walking side by side on the street, but one of them may be a genius and the other ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... from those who procure it at the rate of six Spanish dollars the pound, or eight dollars the catty, and sells in the China market at Canton for nine to twelve dollars the pound, or twelve to fifteen hundred dollars the pekul of a hundred catties or one hundred thirty-three pounds and a third, avoirdupois. When of superior quality it sells for two thousand dollars, and I have been assured that some small choice samples have produced upwards of thirty dollars per catty.* It is estimated that the whole quantity annually brought down for sale on the western side ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... the heads averages 22.1 inches, and the arc, from ear to ear, 13 inches. According to Mr. Davies, the average weight of the Aino adult masculine brain, ascertained by measurement of Aino skulls, is 45.90 ounces avoirdupois, a brain weight said to exceed that of all the races, Hindoo and Mussulman, on the Indian plains, and that of the aboriginal races of India and Ceylon, and is only paralleled by that of the races of the Himalayas, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... was carried. The schoolmaster, occupied with his pupils, and not liking the interruption, hastily, and without further inquiries of the messenger, turned over his Bonnycastle, and arriving at the table of avoirdupois weight, replied, "Tell your father that sixteen drams make ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... were turned on her, then sat upon the lowest step and broke into uncontrollable spasms of mirth. Tears ran down her furrowed cheeks, and the oak step, that had not these four generations yielded to the weight of Mays, creaked beneath this onslaught of convulsive avoirdupois. ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... into requisition and tried in succession, but not a key among them all is a duplicate of mine. What is to be done. Le portier looks as dejected as though Paris was about to be bombarded, as he goes down and breaks the dreadful news to le proprietaire. Up comes le proprietaire - avoirdupois three hundred pounds - sighing like an exhaust-pipe at every step. For fifteen unhappy minutes the skeleton-key is wriggled and twisted about again in the key- hole, and the fat proprietaire rubs his bald head impatiently, but all to no purpose. Each returns to his respective avocation. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... doubtfully at Mr. Pyecroft, hesitated, then nodded to Matilda. The latter, relieved of the pressure of much policial avoirdupois, slipped from the room. The lieutenant turned and silently held a penetrating gaze upon the empty clothes-hooks. Mr. Pyecroft continued to look imperturbably and pleasantly upon the four officers. And under the bedclothes Mrs. De Peyster saw wild visions of Mr. Pyecroft ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... in its limited signification, as including only British subjects. On this estimate the 94,000,000 of British subjects, men, women and children, would not individually consume more than one pound avoirdupois by the month. A fat, hungry Brahmin, at any of the festivals given by the great, will digest for his own share four pounds, without at all embarrassing ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... spending the winter. That evening the Voorheeses came over and discussed their purchases, and Miss Wyatt, the sister, came with them. She was typically like Mrs. Voorhees, only younger, and with her figure in better restraint. She had so far successfully fought down an hereditary tendency to avoirdupois. She had brilliant yellow hair and a brilliant complexion, like her sister, and she was as well, even better, dressed. Ida had purchased that day a steamer-rug, a close little hat, and a long coat for the voyage, and the women talked over the purchases and their plans for travel with undisguised ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... altogether. Perhaps the child's eye and the child's heart, fresh from God, see and feel more clearly and more justly than we do. For this much is sure—Jeanette was right in keeping to the end the image of Colonel Martin Culpepper as a knight-errant, who needed only a bespangled steed, a little less avoirdupois, and a foolish cause to set him battling in the tourney. As it was, in this humdrum world, the colonel could do nothing more heroic than come rattling down Main Street into the child's heart, sitting with some dignity in his weather-beaten buggy, while instead of shining armour and ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... heavy boat. The long Naval oar is surprisingly full of avoirdupois weight. True, a midshipman has to handle but one oar, but it takes him many, many days to learn how to ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... in Crawford's History at 35,530 ounces; but no doubt it was much more when the native states were in a condition of greater wealth and civilisation, as they undoubtedly were some centuries ago. Valentyn says that in some years Achin had exported 80 bahars, equivalent to 32,000 or 36,000 Lbs. avoirdupois (!). Of the other products named, lign-aloes or eagle-wood is a product of Sumatra, and is or was very abundant in Campar on the eastern coast. The Ain-i-Akbari says this article was usually brought to India from Achin and Tenasserim. Both this and spikenard ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... then gets indignant that we call "stone" "stun," and measure the gravity of flesh and blood thereby. "To unsophisticated ears, 21 stone 6 pounds sounds infinitely less than three hundred pounds, which weight is a fair average of the avoirdupois density of the Sir Tunbelly Clumsies of the middle ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... lively girl, Annie Mation," pursued Neale, racking his brain to discover other punning words. "And despite her superabundance of avoirdupois, Ellie Phant ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... net in avoirdupois ounces. Each complete ration with its tin container weighed nearly twenty-seven pounds. The five pounds over net weight of daily ration was taken up in tin necessary for protection of food. The weight of component parts of daily ration had to be governed to some extent by the size ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... helpless pink, and murmured politely. The stranger dismounted from the wagon with the awkwardness of age and avoirdupois. John Dysart stood just behind his guest, describing him as if ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... meal (for the word sago signifies meal in the dialect of Amboyna). Mr. Crawfurd, who resided a long time in the Indian Archipelago, calculates that an English acre could contain four hundred and thirty-five sago-trees, which would yield one hundred and twenty thousand five hundred pounds avoirdupois of fecula, or more than eight thousand pounds yearly. History of the Indian Archipelago volume 1 pages 387 and 393. This produce is triple that of corn, and double that of potatoes in France. But the plantain produces, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... removal of weight from one end, and large increase of avoirdupois at the other, produced a natural but very surprising result. Chokie in his tub, though at the long end of the beam, so to speak (the rear axletree being the fulcrum), was not heavy enough to counterbalance two brothers and a barrel of water ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... shade but the day before, the fresh invigorating mountain air was like a breath from the open doors of Paradise. The stout horses scrambled up the steep hills altogether unmindful of the wagon-loads of people behind. Perhaps the light hearts and buoyant spirits of the party lessened their avoirdupois and the tonnage was actually ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... mighty attractive dish, and I knew that she could also be a bright and interesting conversationalist if she wanted to be. Under other circumstances I might have enjoyed the company, but it was no pleasure to know that every grain of her one hundred and fourteen pounds avoirdupois was Barcelona's Personal Property. At that moment I realized that I was not too much concerned with what Barcelona's reaction might be. Instead, I was wishing that things were different so that any ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... Mr. Blythe, in which he discusses surplus avoirdupois. It tells fat people how to get thin, and thin people will get fat ...
— Cutting It out - How to get on the waterwagon and stay there • Samuel G. Blythe
... the grumbling Californian miners had called, in their wrath, "dashed black dust;"[EN109] and when a second experiment yielded twenty-eight grammes (each fifteen grains and a half) and ten centigrammes from 111 grammes, or about a quarter of a pound avoirdupois. In the latter experiment also, the culot came away without the litharge, which almost always contains traces of silver and antimony. Hence we concluded that the proportions were 30:110—a magnificent result, considering that 12-1/2:100 is held to ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... silver or gold equivalent to about one-eleventh of a Russian pound, or 9/110ths of a pound avoirdupois. ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... of Grasse are the distilling of perfumes and the preserving of fruits. The flowers are cultivated on terraces resembling great nursery-beds. Of the perfumes, the most precious are the Otto of Roses and the Nroly. It requires 45 lbs. avoirdupois of rose leaves (petals) to make 1 gramme, or 15 grains troy of the Otto of Roses, which costs from 2 to 3 frs. the gramme; and 2 lbs. troy of the petals of orange flowers to make 1 gramme of Nroly, which costs 8 to 10 sous the gramme. The best ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... is more generally used in this country, is the English system. The hank is 840 yards, and the number of hanks in one pound avoirdupois is the count of the yarn. It is based on the finished yarn, and singles, two or three cord yarns of the same number all have the same yards per ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... the curve of one's brow, or distrust the tone of his voice; yet, let us away with suspicions if we may, and make a jolly comrade of him, in the name of the gods. Miserable! thrice miserable he, who is forever turning over and over one's character in his mind, and weighing by nice avoirdupois, the pros and the cons of his goodness and badness. For we are all good and bad. Give me the heart that's huge as all Asia; and unless a man, be a villain outright, account him one of the best ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... chanced to be in the hall, and saw Mr. Hutchinson, in irritable, stout Englishman fashion, struggling into his overcoat, he sprang forward with a light, friendly air and helped him. 'He did not do it with ostentatious politeness or with the manner of active youth giving generous aid to elderly avoirdupois. He did it as though it occurred to him as a natural result ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... boy. He seemed to him much like any other boy of his age, but such remarkable things in the way of avoirdupois poundage and teething, serenity of temper and quickness of apprehension were explained to him that he felt that he must be in the ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... a cup or vessel of convenient form, capable of holding a suitable quantity of water, say about two pounds avoirdupois. Berthelot decidedly prefers a simple can of platinum, very thin, with a light cover of the same metal, to be fastened on by a bayonet hitch. For strictly laboratory work this may be the best form; but for the hasty manipulation and rough usage of practical boiler ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... he means at one crop. The quantity in the text, reduced to avoirdupois weight, amounts to twenty-eight hogsheads, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... the charging column numbered but two girls, the pig tossed his head, uttered a scornful grunt, and started slowly out of the garden. He was in no hurry. He had grown fat on these raids, and he did not propose to lose any of the avoirdupois thus gained, ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... Sir Stratford Canning, English Ambassador at Constantinople, I was kindly permitted to visit the Sultan's harem as often as I pleased and there look upon the 'lights of the world.' These 'lights of the world' consisted of five hundred bodies of unwieldy avoirdupois. The ladies of the harem gazed upon my ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... better the simple woods lesson of substitution or doing without. You find that discomfort is as soon forgotten as pain; that almost anything can be endured if it is but for the time being; that absolute physical comfort is worth but a very small price in avoirdupois. ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... Food tables are then consulted to discover the protein percentage. Suppose, for instance, the only ingredient having a noticeable quantity of protein is rice, and 1 lb. is used. The table is consulted and shows rice to contain eight per cent. protein. In 1 lb. avoirdupois there are 7,000 grains; eight per cent. of 7,000 is 70.00 x 8 560 grains. Therefore, in the dish prepared there are 560 grains of protein. It is as well after cooking to weight the entree or pudding and divide the number of ounces it weighs into ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... young," he admitted, after a pause, "and therefore propose to take one of the few alleviations allowed to advancing years and an increasing avoirdupois. I am going to give you some advice. There is only one thing worth having in this life, and that is happiness. Even the possibility of it is worth all other possibilities put together. If a man have a chance of grasping happiness—I mean a home and the wife he wants.... and all ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... daughter's portion. Use her kindly, and thank Heaven for her; for it is not every wife that is worth her weight in silver.' And Master Sewell took Mistress Sewall and thirty thousand pounds (not avoirdupois, but sterling). ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of these valuables exceeded three hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois; and in this estimate I have not included one hundred and ninety-seven superb gold watches, three of the number being worth each five hundred dollars, if one. Many of them were very old, and as timekeepers valueless, the works having suffered more or less from corrosion; but all were richly jewelled, ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... principal dish, however, is rice, which is not only employed by them in the composition of their various dishes, but supplies the place of bread. It is exceedingly cheap; the pekul, which is equal to 124 lbs. English avoirdupois, costing from one dollar and three-quarters to ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... small after the weary weeks of watching that he went and had himself weighed, devoutly certain that he shrunk respectably. He even went in for a savage system of training, calculated to reduce his avoirdupois. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... miles an hour; but supposing it to be only five miles, the quantity which passes the falls in an hour is more than eighty-five millions of tuns avoirdupois; if we suppose it to be six, it will be more than one hundred and two millions; and in a day would exceed two thousand four hundred ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... christened LEMUEL, which in the vernacular tongue is called Lem "for short." The dimensions of the edifice were about 120 by 62 inches. The loss is almost irreparable, estimated at not less than 2,000 pounds, avoirdupois. May it rise like a Phoenix from its ashes!—Williams Monthly Miscellany, 1845, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... usual swift wolf's lope he was out of sight over the long stretches of heather and turf so speedily that he arrived at the drying-ground on the hillside before Luckie MacMorrine, handicapped by her twenty stone avoirdupois, had ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... system—each measure and weight rising ten times above the former. All calculations of prices would then be made by simple multiplication. What a gala-day for school-boys when the pence and shilling table would be abolished by act of parliament, and there would no longer be the table of avoirdupois-weight to learn, nor troy-weight, nor apothecaries', nor long-measure, nor square-measure, nor cloth-measure, nor liquid-measure, nor dry-measure, but one decimal scale of weights and measures would suffice for every commodity, and there would only be their names to get by heart in order! ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... who had once been a fine gymnast, had become so flat-chested. Just then Budge's face assumed a more spirited expression, his eyes opened wide and lightened up, and, shouting, "This the way the horsie TROTS," he stood upright, threw up his feet, and dropped his forty-three avoirdupois pounds forcibly upon my lungs. He repeated this operation several times before I fully recovered from the shock conveyed by his combined impudence and weight; but pain finally brought my senses back, and with a wild plunge I unseated my demoniac riders and gained a clear ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... ignore the ravages of a possible embonpoint, but there be other matrons who hang so uncertainly about that borderland of beauty that they somehow manage to convey the hint that only by an unwinking watchfulness do they succeed in foiling the onslaughts of his ogreship of avoirdupois. In their eye lurks terror and in their lines one spells their secret of rebellious hunger; of Delsarte, gymnastics and massage. Sometimes the matron is an improvement on the maid. But this is not always true. For those who turn coarse and harsh with years, ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... of the Kandyan government, (a fortiori then in the particular section of the Kandyan forces which we faced,) there had not been more gunpowder remaining at the hour of Major Davie's infamous capitulation than 750 lbs. avoirdupois; other munitions of war having been in the same state of bankruptcy. Five minutes more of resistance, one inspiration of English pluck, would have placed the Kandyan army in our power—would have saved the honour of the country—would have redeemed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... call upon them during the first month, and when, two months after the wedding, they were spending the evening with us, I asked him if his wife had told him about my relations with her avoirdupois? ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... forth my hand and clutch the sun? Yet thou seest me daily stretch forth my hand and clutch many a thing and swing it hither and thither. Art thou a grown baby, then, to fancy that the miracle lies in miles of distance, or in pounds avoirdupois of weight; and not to see that the true miracle lies in this, that I can stretch forth my hand ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... quantity of food required to sustain an ordinary man in health and strength, I have previously stated, is about two pounds avoirdupois daily, and an equal weight of oxygen is necessary to the integrity of the vitalizing processes undergone by the food, and to maintain the physical temperature. When the requisite supply of oxygen is reduced, the extrication of heat ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... his native element, and, seized with a fit of science, had endeavored to convert himself into a screw of the Artesian well. Placed feet downward on the ground again, I could not thank my deliverers or swear at the mule. I was dumb with astonishment and the mud, having swallowed eighteen ounces avoirdupois weight of the sacred soil of Mississippi while endeavoring to express my admiration of the performance of the mule. When I had removed the mire from my optics, in which cotton-seed would have grown freely, I beheld the mule in the dim distance. I could not see the brute plainly, but I ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... nothing and argued that all the weight was in his own favor. The keeka (girl) had made a mistake. And to a man who measured everything by worldly icties this was sound argument, for the only big thing about Peter was his avoirdupois—barring his heart, of course. In the heat of his argument Johnny determined to deprive Peter of his sacred property. And among the Indians this is not nearly so hazardous or hopeless or criminal an undertaking as it may seem through ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... no bate with telling of discreet stories; and such other gambol faculties a' has, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the prince admits him: for the prince himself is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois. ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... could we suppose them in a thoughtless moment to have carried into legislation a mildened modicum of that metaphorical language which forms the staple of debate, we should make no remonstrance. We recognize the severe justice of an ideal avoirdupois in literary criticism. We remember the unconscious sarcasm of the Atlantic Telegraph, as it sank heart-broken under the strain of conveying the answer of the Heavy Father of our political stage to the graceful "good-morning" of Victoria. The enthusiastic member ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... side road there suddenly trotted a piebald pony, drawing a low, basket phaeton, in which sat two prim, little, old ladies, a fat one and a lean one. Despite the difference in their avoirdupois the two old ladies showed themselves to ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... plainly, for his face was drawn, his eyes were sunken as if from hunger, and his whole body seemed to have fallen away till his uniform hung upon him loose, unkempt, and careless. It was as if hope had been a thing of avoirdupois, and when taken away had caused a shrinkage. He had interrogated Stark again after getting the doctor, but the man had only cursed at him, declaring that his daughter was out of reach, where he would take care to keep her, and torturing the lover anew by linking Runnion's ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... of Weights for Round and Square Steel. Table of Weight of Flat Steel Bars. Avoirdupois Weight. Troy Weight. Apothecaries' Weight. Linear Measure. Long Measure. Square Measure. Solid or Cubic Measure. Dry Measure. Liquid Measure. Paper Measure. Table of Temperatures. Strength of Various Metals. Freezing Mixtures. Ignition Temperatures. ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... her cheeks with a swift gesture, swallowed those which had not yet fallen and fell to sewing frantically for there were steps outside. But the late caller was not Justin Ware as for the moment she had feared, but Mrs. West entering with the ponderous dignity inseparable from two hundred pounds avoirdupois. Persis rose hastily and pulled forward the big armchair, her action due to a well-grounded fear for her furniture in addition to the impulse ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... heavily upon Abrahm Kantor in avoirdupois only. He was himself plus eighteen years, fifty pounds, and a new sleek pomposity that was absolutely oleaginous. It shone roundly in his face, doubling of chin, in the bulge of waistcoat, heavily gold-chained, and in eyes that behind the gold-rimmed glasses gave ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... members of the race there will be a different attitude assumed towards it. But as long as the Negro prefers to construe owlish looks as wisdom, to bow down to clam like silence as profound philosophy, to stand agape over blatant mouthings as eloquence, and to measure mental calibre by bodily avoirdupois, he not only gives evidence of weakness in a lack of sound discrimination, but he subjects the entire race to consequent ...
— The Educated Negro and His Mission - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 8 • W. S. Scarborough
... property in the same way. Shelley was a poet, and perhaps idealized his friends. He saw them, probably, in a state of pure intellect. I am not a poet; I look at people in the concrete. The most obvious thing about my friends is their avoirdupois; and I prefer that they should wear their own cloaks and suffer me to wear mine. There is no neck in the world that I want my collar to span except my own. It is very exasperating to me to go to my bookcase ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... France is this; shining in your grandiose imagination, in such contrast to the stingy fact: like a creature consisting of two enormous wings, five hundred yards in potential extent, and no body bigger than that of a common cock, weighing three pounds avoirdupois. Cock with his own gizzard much out of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... health and made up in endurance what I lacked in avoirdupois, along with a firm determination to take up the first honest work that presented itself, regardless of choice, and in the meantime to secure a few gold claims, the fame of which had for two years ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... said Sherlock Holmes. 'The fact is, I followed Sir George Newnes into the Capital and Counties Bank this afternoon, where he demanded six thousand pounds in gold; but when he learned this would weigh ninety-six pounds seven ounces avoirdupois weight, and that even troy weight would make the sum no lighter, he took two small bags of gold and the rest in Bank of England notes. I came from London on the same train with him, but he was off in the automobile ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... Must not weigh less than five or more than five and one-quarter ounces avoirdupois, and measure not less than nine nor more than nine and one-quarter inches in circumference. The Spalding League Ball, or the Reach American Association Ball must be used in all games played under ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... furs was soon opened: the Dutch traders were scrupulously honest in their dealings, and purchased by weight, establishing it as an invariable table of avoirdupois that the hand of a Dutchman weighed one pound and his foot ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the street where the rioters were, I turned and saw him, perfectly breathless, bear his two hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois against a door. It was not closed, but had only been slammed by the score of Zou-Zous enjoying the whisky within; and as I looked I saw a dignified colonel in the C.S. army turn a complete somersault into ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... pieces, sprinkled with dry flour, and at the end of four hours more, it is again kneaded for half an hour, and divided into quartern and half-quartern loaves. The weight of a quartern loaf, before baking, should be four pounds fifteen ounces; after baking, four pounds six ounces, avoirdupois. When the dough has received its proper shape for loaves, it is put into the oven, at a heat that will scorch flour without burning, where it is baked two hours and a half, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... custom, "Mr. Roundabout? Lor' bless you! I carry him up to bed drunk every night in the week." He, Tomkins, being a man of seven stone weight and five feet high; whereas his employer was—but here modesty interferes, and I decline to enter into the avoirdupois question. ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... bulbous man with a jet-black mustache hung under his nose, a shirt-collar cut low enough to permit of his breathing, and a skin-tight waistcoat buttoned over a rotundity that rested on his knees. He had restless, quick eyes, and, before his "ex" life began and his avoirdupois gained upon him, restless, quick fingers with steel springs inside of them—good fingers for handling ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... brisk trade for furs was soon opened; the Dutch traders were scrupulously honest in their dealings and purchased by weight, establishing it as an invariable table of avoirdupois, that the hand of a Dutchman weighed one pound, and his foot two pounds. It is true, the simple Indians were often puzzled by the great disproportion between bulk and weight, for let them place a bundle of furs, never so large, in one scale, and a Dutchman put his hand or foot in the other, the bundle ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the air on artificial wings, but it is due principally to this muscular weakness that Darius Green has never been able to make a success of his flying machine, and perhaps never will. He would not have the strength to wield wings large enough to sustain so much avoirdupois on ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... avoirdupois c.i.f. cost, insurance, and freight CY calendar year DWT deadweight ton est. estimate Ex-Im Export-Import Bank of the United States f.o.b. free on board FRG Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) FY fiscal year ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... taken, and some I saw. I measured them, and found that, from nose to tail, they were just two inches and a quarter, and their tails just two inches long. Two of them, in a scale, weighed down just one copper halfpenny, which is about the third of an ounce avoirdupois: so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this island. A full-grown Mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one ounce lumping weight, which is more than six times as much as the mouse above; and measures from ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... fact Abigail Prim detested Samuel Benham because he represented to her everything in life which she shrank from—age, avoirdupois, infirmity, baldness, stupidity, and matrimony. He was a prosaic old bachelor who had amassed a fortune by the simple means of inheriting three farms upon which an industrial city subsequently had been built. Necessity rather than foresight had compelled ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... at sixteen years of age and this is my third wife." He pointed over his shoulder to a tow-headed German for all I could see, and who certainly showed no sign of the native except in her dress and manners and avoirdupois. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... the interpretation of Percy Mackaye, who in his play, The Canterbury Pilgrims, derives the heartiest enjoyment from Chaucer's woe lest his avoirdupois may affect Madame Eglantine unfavorably. The modern English poet who is oppressed by too, too solid flesh is inclined to follow Chaucer's precedent and take it philosophically. James Thomson allowed the stanza about himself, interpolated by his friends into the Castle ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... Uncle Moses, as the entire party addressed him, "Brother Avoirdupois;" and the lawyer retorted by christening the surgeon "Brother Adipose Tissue." The conductor of the party in Egypt had called them both "cupids;" and this term became very popular for the time. The other gentleman who had been saved from an untimely grave in the bay was a learned Frenchman. ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... were buying and selling tulips like mad. In order to make the commodity of the day accessible to all, a new weight was invented, called a perit, so small that there were about eight thousand of them in one pound avoirdupois, and a single tulip root weighing from half an ounce to an ounce, would contain from 200 to 400 of these perits. Thus, anybody unable to buy a whole tulip, could buy a perit or two, and have what the lawyers call an "undivided ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... he determined that "when a column of quicksilver thirty inches high is sustained in the barometer, as it frequently happens, a column of air that presses upon an inch square near the surface of the earth must weigh about fifteen avoirdupois pounds."(4) As the pressure of air at the sea-level is now estimated at 14.7304 pounds to the square inch, it will be seen that Boyle's calculation ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... of the standard weight established by the deified Dungi, an earlier king." The stone now weighs 978.309 grammes, which, making the requisite deductions for the wear and tear of time, would give 980 grammes, or rather more than 2 pounds 2 ounces avoirdupois. The Babylonian maneh, as fixed by Dungi and Nebuchadnezzar, thus agrees in weight rather with the Hebrew maneh of gold than with the "royal" maneh, which was equivalent to ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... of 32 lbs. Also, a Spanish general wine measure of 4-1/4 English gallons. The lesser arroba, used for oil, is only 3-1/3 English gallons. A Spanish weight of 25 lbs. avoirdupois; one-fourth of a quintal. Also, a rough country cart ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Before I knew his purpose, he had tripped my feet from under me and knocked me flat on the floor. Overturning the empty coffin-box, he clapped it above my whole length, imprisoning me with the snap and celerity of a mouse-trap. Then I heard the thud of two hundred avoirdupois seating itself on top of the case. The man above my person had whisked out a book of prayers, and with lantern on the desk was conning over devotions, which, I am sure, must have been read with the manual upside down; for bits of the pater noster, service of the mass, and ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... cautious young noblemen would talk with Kalora, and, finding her bright-eyed, witty, ready in conversation and with enthusiasm for big and masculine undertakings, be attracted to her. At the same time her father decided that there was no reason why her pitiful shortage of avoirdupois should be candidly advertised. Even at a garden-party, where the guests of honor are two English subjects, the young women would be required to veil themselves up to the nose-tips and hide themselves within a veritable cocoon of ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... The Attic talent weighed about sixty minae, or avoirdupois pounds (see Hooper on Ancient Weights, Measures, &c.;) but among the modern Greeks, that classic appellation was extended to a weight of one hundred, or one hundred and twenty-five pounds, (Ducange, talanton.) Leonardus Chiensis measured the ball or stone of the second cannon Lapidem, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Janet Sweet. Janet is a dear soul and very nicelooking; tall, but not over-tall; stoutish, yet with a certain restraint of outline suggestive of a thrifty soul who is not going to be overlavish even in the matter of avoirdupois. She has a knot of soft, crimpy, brown hair with a thread of gray in it, a sunny face with rosy cheeks, and big, kind eyes as blue as forget-me-nots. Moreover, she is one of those delightful, old-fashioned cooks who don't care a ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... question of debate. Some authorities on the subject insist that the Rubenesque type is preferable, while others claim that the Byzantine is more fashionable. One thing is certain—it is absolutely incorrect for ladies who weigh less than 75 or more than 275 pounds (avoirdupois) to appear in costumes that would offend against modesty. It is also considered rude to hold one's swimming partner under water for more then the formal ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... had a like derivation. Seeds seem commonly to have supplied the unit. The original of the carat used for weighing in India is a small bean. Our own systems, both troy and avoirdupois, are derived primarily from wheat-corns. Our smallest weight, the grain, is a grain of wheat. This is not a speculation; it is an historically registered fact. Henry III. enacted that an ounce should be the weight of 640 dry grains of wheat ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... fawncied, and doubtless was bestowed upon me as indicative of my lack of avoirdupois. And it was not entirely unnatural that they should do so, for at the time when I came to Winthrop I was very slight, very slight indeed. The appellation, or cognomen, was without doubt given in recognition of that fact, a custom not unknown, among the classical ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... prepare himself for the hard work in sight. I don't mean that he should be down to edge, but in good ruddy health. As a matter of fact, a man is far better off if he can start the season with eight or ten pounds of extra avoirdupois; and four or five pounds above "pink of condition" may be carried throughout the season with good results. They will prevent one's getting cold while in the water and keep one from going stale, a very easy matter in ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton
... sulphate, has been extensively used in South Africa in the treatment of sheep and cattle for stomach worms and is recommended by the colonial veterinary surgeon of the Cape Colony as the best and safest remedy. To prepare the solution take 1 pound (avoirdupois) of pure bluestone, powder it fine, and dissolve in 9-1/2 gallons of warm water. It is better first to dissolve the bluestone in 2 or 3 quarts of boiling water, then add the remaining quantity of cold water, and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... like to go back there, and make a long visit. But that can't be. How much I wish it could! If only there were life-renewers as well as hair-renewers! They called me pretty at fourteen—said I had pretty ways, (one of them was one hundred and thirty-five avoirdupois,) and would certainly be a belle. But I proved too much for that. One hundred and seventy-five cut off all hope. I sighed, ate nothing, studied poetry, did a good deal of melancholy by moonlight and otherwise, but nothing came of it. I made myself ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... this. Pressure was high. People were mashed and squeezed together. Those who, by reason of a lack of avoirdupois, were less firmly attached to the ground, were lifted bodily. Walter hung suspended in mid-air and looked over the heads of men ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... full of mutton, from my part-blood Merinos; and his intestines contained feathers, which he probably devoured with a duck, or winter gull, as I observed an entire foot and leg of some water fowl. I had two killed previous to this, which weighed ten pounds avoirdupois each." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... their own grounds for it. Most of us, as thou sayest, have been upon the wheel of these artificers; and little was left but rags when we got off. Sanctified folks are the cleverest skinners in all Christendom, and their Jordan tans and constringes us to the avoirdupois of mummies. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... did not exploit that passion of patriotism as an advertisement in the style of Barnum or Perham. "I scale one hundred and eighty pounds, but when I'm mad I weigh two ton," said the Kentuckian, with a true notion of moral avoirdupois. That ideal kind of weight is wonderfully increased by a national feeling, whereby one man is conscious that thirty millions of men go into the balance with him. The Roman in ancient, and the Englishman in modern times, have been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... of the weights per cubic foot and the number of cubic feet per ton of some of the principal ore-forming minerals and gangue rocks will be useful for approximating the weight of a cubic foot of ore by the third method. Weights are in pounds avoirdupois, and two thousand pounds are reckoned ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... Dutchmen on their first voyage in the Half Moon, sailing into New York Bay, prohibited by Hudson "from wearing more than five jackets and six pair of breeches." We see the scrupulously "honest" Dutch traders buying furs from the Indians, using an invariable scale of avoirdupois weights, a Dutchman's hand in the scale opposite the furs weighing one pound, his foot two pounds. We watch the puzzled Indians trying to account for the fact that the largest bundle of furs never weighed more than two pounds. ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... tree, still higher up than those on which the staging was to rest. One stood above to guide the huge piece of plank-work, while all the rest exerted their strength upon the ropes below. Even little Jan pulled with all his might—though a single pound avoirdupois weight would have been about ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... since then I have had a business, and a colony, and a mission of my own. I was a man of the world before I was a Christian; I'm a man of the world still, and I made my mission pay. No good ever came of coddling. A man has to stand up in God's sight and work up to his weight avoirdupois; then I'll talk to him, but not before. I gave these beggars what they wanted: a judge in Israel, the bearer of the sword and scourge; I was making a new people here; and behold, the angel of the Lord smote ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... inspiration to write his poem on Sir John Franklin, and he had done so, winning the college prize for poetry. But no one had seen any change in him in those months; and, indeed, there had been little or no change, for he had an equable and practical, though imaginative, disposition, despite his avoirdupois, and his new purpose did not stir him yet from his ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... longer groan under the erroneous impression which you appear to harbor, touching my physique, I remit to you a photograph of a majority of myself. The photograph was made last December, when I was, so to speak, at my perihelion in the matter of avoirdupois. You may be gratified to know that I have not shrunken much since that time. I have taken the timely precaution to label the picture in order that none of your Fredericton people thumbing over your domestic album shall mistake me for either a young Episcopal ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... sender should be placed in each box. The moths, as soon as received, will be examined microscopically, and the eggs of those which are found to be free from disease will be weighed and paid for at the rate of $2.50 per ounce of 25 grammes (about 6-7 of an ounce avoirdupois). Silk culturists are advised not to attempt the production of eggs unless they are adepts at the industry, and have had at least one season's experience. We would advise each person desiring to sell, to send a sample first, with a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... But before Lucinda could do more than despairingly ask herself what was to be done now, Romney answered—not in words, but in deeds. He coolly picked Lucinda up in his arms, as if she had been a child instead of a full grown woman of no mean avoirdupois, and began to wade with her through ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... which though strong was not ill-flavoured. These were the principal goods on board her; but we found, besides, what was to us much more valuable than the rest of the cargo. This was some trunks of wrought plate, and twenty-three serons of dollars, each weighing upwards of 200 pounds avoirdupois. The ship's burthen was about 450 tons; she had fifty-three sailors on board, both whites and blacks; she came from Callao, and had been twenty-seven days at sea before she fell into our hands. She was bound to the port of Valparaiso, in the kingdom of Chili, and proposed to have returned thence ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... a dollar gold. Dollar or dollar Mex., about fifty cents gold. Cash, about the twentieth part of a cent gold. Li, a scant third of an English mile. Catty, about one and one-third pounds avoirdupois. ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... cotton is reduced to a fine thread, of which, in some cases, it takes two or three hundred miles to weigh one pound. Even in what are termed medium numbers or counts of cotton yarn, there are from fifteen to twenty-five miles of thread in a pound avoirdupois, and more than a thousand million pounds of such yarns ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... cheerful outlook and social inclination attain the age of five and fifty without contracting superfluous avoirdupois and distinctive mannerism. That Colonel William Landor was no exception to the first rule was proven by the wheezing effort with which he made his descent from the two-seated canvas-covered surrey in front of Bob Manning's store, and, with a deftness ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... red stuff, measuring a couple of inches across and weighing about three ounces avoirdupois, rust-red in colour with purple streaks and yellow mottlings, is now lying before me. The mineralogist would tell me that its commercial value is naught, or something infinitesimal; which is doubtless true ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... as we stand watching the rising of the tide. A roly-poly woman of forty or so is caught on the islet by the closing of old Ocean's drawbridge. She is a fair being with dark hair and eyes, a sweet smile, a clear complexion, and some two hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois, richly dressed, pleasant-mannered, and in all respects no doubt a lady to be admired and loved, as well as respected, in the social circle. But at present she is at a sad disadvantage. I noticed her a few minutes ago at the top of the iron staircase, and said ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... that the tense look on the faces of the players was anything but the feverish, haggard gaze I had expected. In fact, they were sleek, well-fed, typical prosperous New-Yorkers rather inclined to the noticeable in dress and carrying their avoirdupois as if life was an easy game with them. Most of them evidently belonged to the financial and society classes. There were no tragedies; the tragedies were elsewhere—in their offices, homes, in the courts, anywhere, but not here at the club. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... personality admitted of private confidences. I have listened to the touching experiences of the Bearded Lady, whose rough cheeks belie her susceptible heart. Miss Jane Campbell has allowed me to question her on the delicate subject of avoirdupois equivalents; and the armless fair one, whose embrace no monarch could hope to win, has wrought me a watch-paper with those despised digits which have been degraded from gloves to boots in our evolution ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... grain of irony in her, but no word could have been more applicable to Uncle Tom and Miss Collett than an arrangement. One felt that each had measured the other by avoirdupois weight, and ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... down to her—a little, thin, spare man, but a man of weight nevertheless, for he brought a great pair of scales with him, and weighed everything that was put on board. I forget his real name, but the sailors christened him Captain Avoirdupois. He had a large book, and in it he inserted the weight of the ballast, and of the shot, water, provisions, coals, standing and running rigging, cables, and everything else. Then he weighed all the men, and all the ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... "piece." Francie and Sammy to be dressed as pages and bear, each, a tray spread with the gifts it was to be her own task and privilege to contrive. Sabina to hover over all as a sort of Cupid, who, if somewhat "hefty" as to avoirdupois, was in all other respects a ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... tael is a Chinese money of account, worth formerly about $1.50; now $1.68, "Tael" is the trade name in China for the ounce of silver; it also designates a weight, of 1 1/3 oz. avoirdupois. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... cheered pa again and he got down off the elephant, took off his fire extinguisher, and handed Bolivar a piece of rag carpet, and said: "Eat it, you old catamaran, or I'll kill you," and Bolivar was so scared of pa he eat the carpet, which shows the power of brain over avoirdupois, pa says. ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... are made up by troy weight, although drugs are bought by avoirdupois weight. There are twelve ounces to the pound troy, which is marked lb.; the ounce, which contains eight drachms, is marked [*ounce]i. [looks like a z on top of a 3]; the drachm, containing three scruples, is marked [*drachm]i. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... temples and ivory statues, etc. as Sicily had: but what Knowles could not or had not a propensity to commit in rapine and petty larceny, he has made up in tyranny. The papers are granted, and we are all going to turn jurymen. The rest of the day was spent in a kind of avoirdupois war. Your friend Sir George Lyttelton opened the budget; well enough in general, but was strangely bewildered in the figures; he stumbled over millions, and dwelt pompously upon farthings. Pitt attacked him pretty warmly on mortgaging ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... spent a week along the Frio, Leona, and Nueces rivers, and closed contracts on sixty-one hundred five to seven year old beeves. The cattle were not as good a quality as prairie-raised north Texas stock, but the pounds avoirdupois were there, the defects being in their mongrel colors, length of legs, and breadth of horns, heritages from the original Spanish stock. Otherwise they were tall as a horse, clean-limbed as a deer, and active ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... unexciting life, the mental rest from vexatious business cares, all proved superior to any tonic a physician could prescribe, and I became more rugged as I grew accustomed to the duties of an oarsman, and gained several pounds avoirdupois by the time I ended the row of twenty-six hundred miles and landed on the sunny shores of the Gulf ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... the charge of Brother Avoirdupois; and I acknowledge myself to be a worshipper at the shrine of Mr. Melancthon Sage, and I invoke a blessing upon the head of Monsieur Odervie, the chief cook. Our life on the ocean wave is a constant promotive of the appetite. If the proof of the pudding is not in the eating of the ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... standard 10 per cent. aluminum bronze is $1 per pound avoirdupois, which means less than $9 per pound for aluminum, the lowest price at which it has ever been sold, yet the Cowles company has laid a proposition before the Government to furnish this same bronze in large quantities at very ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... general agency of the old French clergy, and founded by the long-sighted genius of Richelieu. Thuillier's name opened for him the doors of the salon, where sat enthroned in velvet and gold, amid the most magnificent "Chineseries," the poor woman who weighed with all her avoirdupois on the hearts and minds of princes and princesses at the "popular balls" of ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... cash, walked back again, and—carried the tomes from the west end of Euston Road to a street in Islington far beyond the Angel. I did it in two journeys—this being the only time in my life when I thought of Gibbon in avoirdupois. Twice—three times, reckoning the walk for the money—did I descend Euston Road and climb Pentonville on that occasion. Of the season and the weather I have no recollection; my joy in the purchase I had made drove out every other thought. Except, indeed, of ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... ordinarily for weighing foods is the table of AVOIRDUPOIS WEIGHT. Another table of weights, called the table of Troy weight, is used by goldsmiths and jewelers for weighing precious metals. It should not be confused with avoirdupois weight, however, because its pound contains only 12 ounces, whereas the avoirdupois pound contains 16 ounces. The table ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... belonging to Mr. Vose has recently been presented to the New England Historic Genealogical Society, of which he is a member. It is iron, perfectly round, two and a quarter inches in diameter, and weighs 22 oz. avoirdupois. There can be no reasonable doubt that these balls are relics of the little French colony of 1604, and probably the only memorial of the ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... cocked head; "that's better than a bonfire. What! we have a chest here, and bills for close upon two thousand pounds; there's no show to that—it would go in your vest-pocket—but the rest! upwards of forty pounds avoirdupois of coined gold, and close on two hundredweight of Chile silver! What! ain't that good enough to fetch a fleet? Do you mean to say that won't affect a ship's compass? Do you mean to tell me that the look-out won't turn to and smell ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... known as a playwright and maker of pageants. He was born at New York, on the sixteenth of March, 1875, and was graduated from Harvard in 1897. He has travelled much in Europe, and has given many lectures on dramatic art in America. His poetry may be collectively studied in one volume of appalling avoirdupois, published in 1916. It takes a strong wrist to hold it, but ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... the record for belt measurement. Nine hundred and twenty-seven pounds he weighed, as we demonstrated on our own scales at every performance. Their feed bill was quite an item, as the snake took a half-dozen sheep every two weeks and the fat man, who was billed as 'Signor Adipose Avoirdupois'—Merritt invented that—needed about a side ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... taciturnity, still lived his daytime life mainly on wheels. The old buckboard had finally succumbed, but its counterpart, mud-spattered and weather-bleached, had taken its place. In the kitchen, Ma Graham still presided, her accumulated avoirdupois seeming to have been gathered at the expense of her lord, who in equal ratio thinner and more weazened, danced attendance as of old. Only one of the former cowboys now remained. That one, strange to say, was Grannis, the "man from nowhere," who had apparently taken root at ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... is just a little larger than I am, and oh, you should see the scrumbunctious dress I am going to wear to the picnic! It is perfectly— glorious!" and Tavia wheeled around on her toe, threatening her boasted one hundred and five pounds avoirdupois with disaster. ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... standing six feet two inches in height and weighing over two hundred pounds avoirdupois, heretofore regarded as a marvel in physical development, now, in the presence of these eight-foot giants, felt like a shrunken pigmy. Formerly it was generally conceded that I was a rather handsome fellow. This woman thought I was hideous. Previously, I had ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... whose names have so much personality in them that a sovereign presence fills the place where they are spoken,—sculptors whose statues step as it were unexpectedly (themselves surprised) into sight, with none of the avoirdupois of later stone-work; that heaviness which, in some of the finest of these modern figures, causes them to pause involuntarily, as if snowed upon. The high degree of smoothness of the old statues, as well as their ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... of waiting soldiery of as close a pile as Westerling's carpet of gray. The rain-drenched Brown engineers dug as fast as the enemy's. Lanstron massed artillery against massed artillery. For every Gray gun he had more than one Brown gun. The Grays might excel by ratio of five to three in human avoirdupois, but a willing Brown government had been generous with funds. Money will buy guns and skill will man them. Battery back of battery in literal tiers, small calibres in front and heavy calibres in the rear, with ranges fixed to given points—more guns than ever fired on a single ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... somewhat higher. Meat of all kinds is a trifle dearer per pound than in England; but when it is taken into consideration that the Channel Islands' pound is about seventeen and three-quarter ounces of our avoirdupois weight, there is little, if any difference in the prices. Fruit and fish are remarkably good and cheap. The produce in the markets of Guernsey and Jersey are an unusual sight to visitors, for the fruit is placed for customers' inspection just as it is gathered, so that ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... untrained that he really cannot hear what is said, or see what is done,—of what use is it to such a boy, merely because he has gone through a prescribed routine of books and classes, or perchance because he has attained a certain amount of years and of pounds avoirdupois, to be pushed forward into a higher department to attend lectures on chemistry, or anatomy, or morals, or history, or literature? It is preposterous. It is an insult to the Professor, and an injury ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... she cried, holding up a spangled dress, admiringly. "Ain't dat beautiful!" She drew near the mirror, attempting to see the reflection of the tinsel and chiffon against her very ample background of gingham and avoirdupois. "You'd sure be a swell nigger wid dat on, Honey," she chuckled to herself. "Wouldn't dem deacons holler if dey ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... Picture-Gallery you turn (to right or left is not said, nor does it matter) into a suite of fourteen great rooms, each more splendid than the other: lustre from the ceiling of the first room, for example, is of solid silver; weighs, in pounds avoirdupois I know not what, but in silver coin "10,000 crowns:" ceilings painted as by Correggio; "wall-mirrors between each pair of windows are twelve feet high, and their piers (TRUMEAUX) are of massive silver; in front of ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Absalom's hair, how in twenty or thirty years it might well amount to two hundred shekels, or to somewhat above six pounds avoirdupois, see the Literal Accomplishment of Prophecies, p. 77, 78. But a late very judicious author thinks that the LXXX. meant not its weight, but its value, Was twenty shekels.—Dr. Wall's Critical Notes on the Old Testament, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... get a twenty-five check from Dolph, and be on the job Monday at the Barrett Theatre. Now run!" Mr. Vandeford gave Miss Bebe Herne's two hundred pounds of avoirdupois a gentle shove toward the door, which hint she took with an alacrity that had in it a great ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... this country for specifying the size of silk is based on the weight in drams (avoirdupois) of a skein containing 1000 yards. A skein, thus weighing 5 drams, is technically called 5-dram silk. The number of yards of 1-dram silk to a pound must accordingly be 256000. The formulas for figuring the amount ...
— Theory Of Silk Weaving • Arnold Wolfensberger
... during the continuance of any one regulated proportion between the respective values of the different metals in coin, the value of the most precious metal regulates the value of the whole coin. Twelve copper pence contain half a pound avoirdupois of copper, of not the best quality, which, before it is coined, is seldom worth seven-pence in silver. But as, by the regulation, twelve such pence are ordered to exchange for a shilling, they are in the market considered ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... stories and situated in large court yards. There is a public garden, evidently quite gay and pretty in summer. The church is said to be the finest edifice of the kind in Eastern Siberia. The double doors in front of the altar are of solid silver, and said to weigh two thousand pounds avoirdupois. Besides these doors I think I saw nearly a ton of silver in the various paraphernalia of the church. There were several fine paintings executed in Europe at heavy cost, and the floors, walls, and roof of the entire structure were of appropriate splendor. The church was built at the expense ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the I. O. M. A. jewel that dangled from the tangent point of his generous waist line. It had been presented to him by Harmony Lodge, 122, at the conclusion of his term of office as National Grand Corresponding Secretary, and it weighed about eight ounces avoirdupois. Not that the rest of Mr. Linkheimer's wearing apparel was not in keeping, for he affected to be somewhat old-fashioned in his attire, with just a dash of bonhomie. This implies that he wore a wrinkled frock coat and low-cut ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... Monona, and Ina did not defer even to Dwight. She, who measured delicate, troy occasions by avoirdupois, said brightly: ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... saintly Herbert[10] as a shining model of a rural priest. We are glad, therefore, for Wordsworth's sake, that no judge from the Consistorial Court ever happened to meet with Walker when trudging over the Furness Fells to Ulverston with a long cwt. (120 lb. avoirdupois) of wool on his back, a thing which he did in all weathers. The wool would have been condemned as a good prize, and we much fear that Walker's gown would have been stripped over his head; which is a sad catastrophe for a pattern priest. Mr. John Coleridge came much ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... by the air at one action of the heart, is two ounces, and this is acted on in less than one second of time. 6th. The quantity of blood in the whole body of the human adult, is twenty-five pounds avoirdupois, or twenty pints. 7th. In the mutual action that takes place between the air and blood, every twenty-four hours, the air loses thirty-seven ounces of oxygen, and the blood ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... of speech on the part of Mrs. Worthington, seeing that the feather which would have prostrated her must have met a resistance of some one hundred and seventy-five pounds of solid avoirdupois. ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... American pianos are now generally acknowledged throughout the world. The solidity of construction is such that with a compass of seven and one-third octaves the tension of the strings amounts to about 50,000 pounds avoirdupois. The hammers are larger and heavier, the action more responsive, and the singing quality and sustaining power has reached remarkable perfection. Perhaps the most curious and important of all American improvements in this ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... to stay her from the despair into which she had slipped, and could only clearly figure to herself that "the country of the Gergesenes lay to the southeast of the Sea of Tiberias and that a shekel weighed ten hundred-weights and ninety-two grains, Troy weight, equal to in avoirdupois—" her brain whirled. She could not work out the sum. She could not pray. She could recall no prayer. She could look to nothing beyond the country of the Gergesenes. And yet, never in her life had she so needed prayer, strength, ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould |
