[syn: fatness, fat, blubber, avoirdupois]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Avoirdupois \Av`oir*du*pois"\ ([a^]v`[~e]r*d[-u]*poiz"), n. & a.
[OE. aver de peis, goods of weight, where peis is fr. OF.
peis weight, F. poids, L. pensum. See Aver, n., and
Poise, n.]
1. Goods sold by weight. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
2. Avoirdupois weight.
[1913 Webster]
3. Weight; heaviness; as, a woman of much avoirdupois.
[Colloq.]
[1913 Webster]
Avoirdupois weight, a system of weights by which coarser
commodities are weighed, such as hay, grain, butter,
sugar, tea.
[1913 Webster]
Note: The standard Avoirdupois pound of the United States is
equivalent to the weight of 27.7015 cubic inches of
distilled water at 62[deg] Fahrenheit, the barometer
being at 30 inches, and the water weighed in the air
with brass weights. In this system of weights 16 drams
make 1 ounce, 16 ounces 1 pound, 25 pounds 1 quarter, 4
quarters 1 hundred weight, and 20 hundred weight 1 ton.
The above pound contains 7,000 grains, or 453.54 grams,
so that 1 pound avoirdupois is equivalent to 1 31-144
pounds troy. (See Troy weight.) Formerly, a hundred
weight was reckoned at 112 pounds, the ton being 2,240
pounds (sometimes called a long ton).
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
avoirdupois
n 1: a system of weights based on the 16-ounce pound (or 7,000
grains) [syn: avoirdupois, avoirdupois weight]
2: excess bodily weight; "she disliked fatness in herself as
well as in others" [syn: fatness, fat, blubber,
avoirdupois] [ant: leanness, spareness, thinness]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
23 Moby Thesaurus words for "avoirdupois":
beef, beefiness, deadweight, fatness, gravity, gross weight,
heaviness, heft, heftiness, liveweight, neat weight, net,
net weight, overbalance, overweight, ponderability, ponderosity,
ponderousness, poundage, tonnage, underweight, weight,
weightiness