avoirdupois
[av-er-duh-poiz]
noun
Informal. bodily weight: He carries around a lot of excess avoirdupois.
RELATED WORDS
Origin of avoirdupois
1250–1300; Middle English avoir de pois literally, property of weight < Old French, equivalent to avoir (earlier aveir < Latin habēre to have) + de (< Latin dē) + pois (earlier peis < Latin pēnsum)
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Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for avoirdupois
Contemporary Examples of avoirdupois
Its owner seems to take as much pride in her bones as the big girls of Rubens could take in their avoirdupois.
Historical Examples of avoirdupois
The officer is valuable for his dignity, avoirdupois, "bracelets," and other accessories.
Courts and CriminalsArthur Train
She had so far successfully fought down an hereditary tendency to avoirdupois.
By the Light of the SoulMary E. Wilkins Freeman
But before going, several of us stepped upon the scales to note the effect the climate would have upon our avoirdupois.
To and Through NebraskaFrances I. Sims Fulton
The photograph was made last December, when I was, so to speak, at my perihelion in the matter of avoirdupois.
Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And ContradictionsSlason Thompson
The production of silver in the Altai mines is about a thousand and fifty poods annually, or forty thousand pounds avoirdupois.
Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar LifeThomas Wallace Knox
avoirdupois
avoirdupois weight
noun
Word Origin for avoirdupois
C14: from Old French aver de peis goods of weight
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
avoirdupois
[ăv′ər-də-poiz′]
n.
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.