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The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in both the British imperial and United States customary systems of measurement.Various definitions have been used; the most common today is the international avoirdupois pound, which is legally defined as exactly 0.453 592 37 kilograms, and which is divided into 16 avoirdupois ounces. [1]
The earliest known version of the avoirdupois weight system had the following units: a pound of 6992 grains, a stone of 14 pounds, a woolsack of 26 stone, an ounce of 1 ⁄ 16 pound, and finally, the ounce was divided into 16 "parts".
An ounce-force is 1 ⁄ 16 of a pound-force, or about 0.2780139 newtons. It is defined as the force exerted by a mass of one avoirdupois ounce under standard gravity (at the surface of the earth, its weight). The "ounce" in "ounce-force" is equivalent to an avoirdupois ounce; ounce-force is a measurement of force using avoirdupois ounces.
The imperial system has a hundredweight, defined as eight stone of 14 lb each, or 112 lb (50.802 345 44 kg), whereas a US hundredweight is 100 lb (45.359 237 kg). In both systems, 20 hundredweights make a ton. In the US, the terms long ton (2240 lb, 1 016.046 9088 kg) and short ton (2000 lb; 907.184 74 kg) are used.
Precious metals, for example, are often weighed in "troy ounces", because just "ounce" would be more likely to be assumed to mean an avoirdupois ounce. For the pound and smaller units, the U.S. customary system and the British imperial system are identical. However, they differ when dealing with units larger than the pound.
The standard British troy pound manufactured in 1758; it bears the abbreviation ℔ ("pound") and the letter "T" for troy. The troy pound (lb t) consists of twelve troy ounces [15] and thus is 5 760 grains (373.241 72 grams). (An avoirdupois pound is approximately 21.53% heavier at 7 000 grains (453.592 37 grams), and consists of sixteen ...
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The pound-force is the product of one avoirdupois pound (exactly 0.45359237 kg) and the standard acceleration due to gravity, approximately 32.174049 ft/s 2 (9.80665 m/s 2). [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] The standard values of acceleration of the standard gravitational field ( g n ) and the international avoirdupois pound (lb) result in a pound-force equal ...