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The weights are in denominations of 7 pounds (corresponding to a unit known as the clip or wool-clip), 14 pounds (stone), 56 pounds (4 stone) and 91 pounds (1 ⁄ 4 sack or woolsack). [ 18 ] [ 19 ] The 91-pound weight is thought to have been commissioned by Edward III in conjunction with the statute of 1350, while the other weights are thought ...
When the pound is used as a unit of mass, the core of the coherent system is similar and functionally equivalent to the corresponding subsets of the International System of Units (SI), using metre, kilogram and second (MKS), and the earlier centimetre–gram–second system of units (CGS). This system is often called the Absolute English System.
The stone remains widely used in the United Kingdom and Ireland for human body weight: in those countries people may commonly be said to weigh, e.g., "11 stone 4" (11 stones and 4 pounds), rather than "72 kilograms" as in most of the other countries, or "158 pounds", the conventional way of expressing the same weight in the US and in Canada. [38]
The avoirdupois units of mass and weight differ for units larger than a pound (lb). The British imperial system uses a stone of 14 lb, a long hundredweight of 112 lb and a long ton of 2,240 lb. The stone is not a measurement of weight used in the US. The US customary system uses the short hundredweight of 100 lb and short ton of 2,000 lb.
The definition of units of weight above a pound differed between the customary and the imperial system - the imperial system employed the stone of 14 pounds, the hundredweight of 8 stone [Note 6] and the ton of 2240 pounds (20 hundredweight), while the customary system of units did not employ the stone but has a hundredweight of 100 pounds and ...
The table of imperial avoirdupois mass is the same as the United States table up to one pound, but above that point, the tables differ. 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.
Today only the stone continues in customary use for measuring personal body weight. The present stone is 14 pounds (~6.35 kg), but an earlier unit appears to have been 16 pounds (~7.25 kg). The other units were multiples of 2, 8, and 160 times the stone, or 28, 112, and 2240 pounds (~12.7 kg, 50.8 kg, 1016 kg), respectively.
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]