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This is the old English-speaking way of saying how heavy ordinary things are. In this system the usual units are the ounce, the pound, and the ton. Sixteen ounces make one pound. In the United States, two thousand pounds make one ton. Though actually, Britain long used a heavier “ton” of 2,240 pounds with the same family of measures, so “a ton” was not one fixed weight even among people who all said they were using avoirdupois. Shops and kitchens used it for almost everything you can hold: flour, fruit, coal, a person’s body. Gold, silver, and jewels were weighed a different way, with a lighter ounce. Taiwan and most of the world now use . You will still meet avoirdupois in older books, in American recipes that say “pounds,” and in a few laws. Everyday people just say “pounds and ounces”; this long word is for the system itself.
常衡制（以盎司、磅、噸計日常重量；有別於金衡）
組成From Middle English avoir de pois / aver de peis, from Old French aveir + de + peis (“asset of weight”), later shaped by Middle French avoir du pois. Compare French poids (“weight”).
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
avoirdupoisnoun/ˌævədəˈpɔɪz/
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historicalThe official system of weights used in the UK between 1856 and 1963. It had been the customary system in London since 1300.
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historicalThe official system of weights used in the USA between 1866 and 1959.
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Weight; heaviness.
- It seems humanly reasonable that the three of us can woman-handle a mere man of your elderly and insulting avoirdupois.
- The detective sergeant, who was called Munro, more than made up for Cullen's advance in the avoirdupois department. Lean to the point of emaciation, Munro was also a paragon of contemporary fashion. He was clad in a hideous brown suit […]
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obsoleteMerchandise.
- From that mountain go men to the city of Thauriso that was wont to be clept Taxis, that is a full fair city and a great, and one of the best that is in the world for merchandise; thither come all merchants for to buy avoirdupois, and it is in the land of the Emperor of Persia.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。