"Avoirdupois" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for to-morrow, for next month, for the next year, for ten years. This is the man whose volume will just as surely weigh down that of the unthinking man as a ton will weigh down a pound in the scale. Avoirdupois is moral, industrial, as well as material, in this respect; and the primary, most usual cause of unprosperity in industrial callings therefore lies in the want of intelligence,—either in the slender endowment of the man, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... equipped in a well-made suit from the tailoring establishment on the opposite side of the building. Though he had not yet gathered that avoirdupois which is associated with the dignity of office, there was in his square young frame an undeniable promise. Already he carried himself with the deliberation of a man whose future is assured, and his mouth took those upward ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... 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 ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... 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]
... successful attempts of those who were already thinnest dust, yet 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 mellowed whiteness, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... 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 ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... interest of positive science, therefore, subjoin the following, which any one can easily verify for herself. The following articles, viz., merino and cotton drawers, flannel skirt, a light Balmoral, a short, light hoop, corsets, and dress-skirts, over and under, weighed 9lbs. 4oz. Avoirdupois. It must be also remembered that this pressure is not regularly exerted, but on account of the swinging and swaying motion of the skirts, is applied now in one direction, now in another. The dress weighed was not of the heaviest material, but ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... stream. He had been engaged about five weeks when I saw him, and up to that time his Indians had used simply closely-woven willow baskets. His net proceeds (which I saw) were about 16,000 dollars' worth of gold. He showed me the proceeds of his last week's work—14 lbs. avoirdupois of clean-washed gold. ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... 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, or ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... all this was that each of them told me that though organically I was as sound as a nut in fact much sounder than some of the nuts they knew professionally—I was carrying an overload of avoirdupois about with me. In other words, I was too fat for my own good. I was eating too much sweet stuff and entirely too much starch—especially starch. They agreed on this point emphatically. As well as I could gather, I was subjecting my ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... 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 ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... is 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 testing something more ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... 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 kind ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... the article. And what with the time they lose 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 hullabuloo 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 ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as I 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 ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... fourteen. I should 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. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... 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
... 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 a group of red-legged devils, who ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... beef and 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 ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... or the intensity of the force which wind exerts on surfaces opposed to its action. A child with a palm-leaf fan can drive a balloon in equilibrium about at will in an atmosphere entirely quiet, while the same balloon, under the impulse of a lively gale, will tear itself loose from the aggregated avoirdupois of all who can lay hands upon it, and wrench great branches from the forest giants over which it skims. Doubtless, to the disheartening influence of a practical knowledge of the real difficulties in the way of aerial ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... 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 ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... 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 ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... 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 had found ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... 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); used for information dated before 3 October 1990 ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Must not weigh less than five nor 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 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... higher up than those on which the staging was to rest. One stood above to guide the huge piece of plankwork, 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 ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... brought 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 ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... 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 sinking fund; Sir ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... that time his Indians had used simply closely woven willow baskets. His nett proceeds (which I saw) were about $16,000 worth of gold. He showed me the proceeds of his last week's work— fourteen pounds avoirdupois ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... shown the 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 presence ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... durability of the best 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 direction is the so-called "duplex ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... have my share," grumbled Bess. "But what about Tubby's additional avoirdupois, Frankie? He's as big as ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... 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 are mentioned by Polo's contemporary, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... 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 ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... about an ounce, in our modern avoirdupois system. There was no accurate standard weight anywhere. Honest dealers tried to have weights which corresponded to custom. But it was easy to cheat by having two sets of weights, one for buying and one for selling. So ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... This is considerably below the mark, even if India is taken 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
... of 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 much lower ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... that they were faked, and I'll be happy to reinspect your views." Holland levered his avoirdupois out of his chair. "In the meantime, relax. Take a trip if you ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Wesley Barefoot
... 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
... with a fresh layer of masonry each year, the normal walnut-sized nest becomes a ball as large as a man's two fists. I have gathered on a pine-tree a nest of the Mason-bee of the Shrubs that weighed a kilogram (2.205 pounds avoirdupois.—Translator's Note.) and was the size of a child's head. A twig hardly thicker than a straw served as its support. The casual sight of that lump swinging over the spot on which I had sat down made me think of the mishap that ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... word is found variously spelled, "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 Bahar, which ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... come you learn better and 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. Your pack shrinks. ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... 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 was ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... punch-bowl, ornamented with richly chased vine-leaves and Bacchanalian[15] figures; with two sword handles exquisitely embossed, and many other smaller articles which I cannot recollect. The weight 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 time-keepers valueless, the works ...
— Short-Stories • Various |
