What does avoirdupois mean?
Avoirdupois is a noun with two distinct meanings. In its primary sense, it names the familiar system of weights long used in Britain, the United States, and other countries for ordinary commerce — a system built on a pound divided into sixteen ounces, applied to everything from groceries to hardware. The term distinguishes this everyday scale from specialized systems such as troy weight for precious metals or apothecaries' weight for medicines. The word entered English from Old French, where it meant literally 'goods of weight,' reflecting its merchant origins. In a secondary, figurative sense, avoirdupois denotes bodily heaviness or surplus flesh, a usage that lends itself to wry humor about dieting and waistlines. Though the metric system has largely displaced it internationally, avoirdupois remains embedded in daily life wherever pounds and ounces persist, and its quirky name makes it a memorable piece of linguistic history.
The system of weights, based on a pound of sixteen ounces, used for general merchandise in English-speaking countries.
"Butter and cheese were traditionally sold by avoirdupois weight."
Often used attributively in phrases such as 'avoirdupois pound' or 'avoirdupois ounce'.
A person's bodily weight or heaviness, especially regarded as excessive.
"He joked about carrying a few extra avoirdupois since the holidays."
This figurative sense is informal and somewhat dated.
The word 'avoirdupois' literally comes from Old French meaning 'goods of weight' — the everyday weighing system of merchants, whose pound of 16 ounces still rules American grocery scales today.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of avoirdupois
Avoirdupois comes from the Old French phrase 'avoir de pois', meaning 'goods of weight', which referred to merchandise sold by weight rather than by measure. The phrase was adopted into Middle English during the medieval period as the name of the merchant weighing system that became standard in England by the fourteenth century. The element 'pois' traces back through Old French to the Latin verb 'pendere' ('to weigh'), making the word a distant relative of English terms like 'pound', 'ponder', and 'ponderous'.
How avoirdupois is actually used
In modern usage, 'avoirdupois' most often appears in technical or historical contexts describing the weights-and-measures system. Its figurative sense — referring to a person's excess body weight — is somewhat old-fashioned and humorous in tone, found more often in older literature than contemporary speech.
Easily confused with avoirdupois
Troy weight is a separate, older system used for precious metals and gems, in which the pound has only 12 ounces and the ounce is lighter than the avoirdupois ounce.