"Avoirdupois" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brother-in-law, who had once been a fine gymnast, had become so flat-chested. Just then Budge's face assumed a more spirited expression, his eyes opened wide and lightened up, and, shouting, "This the way the horsie TROTS," he stood upright, threw up his feet, and dropped his forty-three avoirdupois pounds forcibly upon my lungs. He repeated this operation several times before I fully recovered from the shock conveyed by his combined impudence and weight; but pain finally brought my senses back, and with a wild plunge I unseated my demoniac ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... straight line; and one foot in their widest circumference; but as they are cut and polished, a portion of their length and thickness has been lost. They are of a very dense substance, as their weight indicates, for even in their dressed state the pair weigh 5 lbs. 11 oz. avoirdupois. ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... got as far as the door, when it burst open and an elderly woman of considerable avoirdupois broke into the room, to sink helplessly upon a flimsy chair which ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... in this country for specifying the size of silk is based on the weight in drams (avoirdupois) of a skein containing 1000 yards. A skein, thus weighing 5 drams, is technically called 5-dram silk. The number of yards of 1-dram silk to a pound must accordingly be 256000. The formulas for figuring the amount of silk required for a piece ...
— Theory Of Silk Weaving • Arnold Wolfensberger
... upon such natural herbage as bamboos, the foliage of the banyan, peepul, and other varieties of the Ficus family; but if it is expected to travel and perform good work, it is usual in the Commissariat department to allow each elephant seven and a half seers of flour, equal to 15 lbs. avoirdupois. In addition to this, 600 lbs. of green fodder are given, and about 1 lb. of ghee (buffalo butter), with salt and jaggery (native sugar). During a jungle expedition I have always doubled the allowance of flour ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... to the low and hignorant of the country." He then gets indignant that we call "stone" "stun," and measure the gravity of flesh and blood thereby. "To unsophisticated ears, 21 stone 6 pounds sounds infinitely less than three hundred pounds, which weight is a fair average of the avoirdupois density of the Sir Tunbelly Clumsies of the middle ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... bate with telling of discreet stories; and such other gambol faculties a' has, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the prince admits him: for the prince himself is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois. ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... six feet two inches in height and weighing over two hundred pounds avoirdupois, heretofore regarded as a marvel in physical development, now, in the presence of these eight-foot giants, felt like a shrunken pigmy. Formerly it was generally conceded that I was a rather handsome fellow. This woman thought I was hideous. Previously, I had felt proud of my nicely curled heavy ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... prodigious golden punch-bowl, ornamented with richly chased vine-leaves and Bacchanalian[15] figures; with two sword handles exquisitely embossed, and many other smaller articles which I cannot recollect. The weight of these valuables exceeded three hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois; and in this estimate I have not included one hundred and ninety-seven superb gold watches, three of the number being worth each five hundred dollars, if one. Many of them were very old, and as time-keepers valueless, the works ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... said Sherlock Holmes. 'The fact is, I followed Sir George Newnes into the Capital and Counties Bank this afternoon, where he demanded six thousand pounds in gold; but when he learned this would weigh ninety-six pounds seven ounces avoirdupois weight, and that even troy weight would make the sum no lighter, he took two small bags of gold and the rest in Bank of England notes. I came from London on the same train with him, but he was off in the automobile before I could make myself known, and so I had to walk up. ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... lowest step and broke into uncontrollable spasms of mirth. Tears ran down her furrowed cheeks, and the oak step, that had not these four generations yielded to the weight of Mays, creaked beneath this onslaught of convulsive avoirdupois. ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... matter of house rent, is somewhat higher. Meat of all kinds is a trifle dearer per pound than in England; but when it is taken into consideration that the Channel Islands' pound is about seventeen and three-quarter ounces of our avoirdupois weight, there is little, if any difference in the prices. Fruit and fish are remarkably good and cheap. The produce in the markets of Guernsey and Jersey are an unusual sight to visitors, for the fruit is placed for customers' ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... obtain a teskeri, or permit, for the quantity that he wishes to convey. After this trouble and delay he returns to his home with the official permit to remove to a specified place (generally Limasol) a fixed quantity of wine, which is calculated by the load; one load equals 128 okes of 2.75 lbs. avoirdupois, and, packed in goat-skins, ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... pending, impending, independent, pendulum, perpendicular, expenditure, pension, suspense, expense, pensive, compensate, ponder, ponderous, preponderant, pansy, poise, pound; (2) pendant, stipend, appendix, compendium, propensity, recompense, indispensable, dispensation, dispensary, avoirdupois. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... furs was soon opened; the Dutch traders were scrupulously honest in their dealings and purchased by weight, establishing it as an invariable table of avoirdupois, that the hand of a Dutchman weighed one pound, and his foot two pounds. It is true, the simple Indians were often puzzled by the great disproportion between bulk and weight, for let them place a bundle of furs, never so large, in one scale, and a Dutchman put his hand or ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... Abigail Prim detested Samuel Benham because he represented to her everything in life which she shrank from—age, avoirdupois, infirmity, baldness, stupidity, and matrimony. He was a prosaic old bachelor who had amassed a fortune by the simple means of inheriting three farms upon which an industrial city subsequently had been built. Necessity rather than foresight had compelled him to hold ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 'There, you Sewall,' said the magnanimous old money maker, 'take these shillings for my daughter's portion. Use her kindly, and thank Heaven for her; for it is not every wife that is worth her weight in silver.' And Master Sewell took Mistress Sewall and thirty thousand pounds (not avoirdupois, but sterling). ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... stipulating, therefore, that no express endeavour should be made for my conversion, - which would involve the rolling of several brothers and sisters on the floor, declaring that they felt all their sins in a heap on their left side, weighing so many pounds avoirdupois, as I knew from what I had seen of those repulsive ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... the 27th chapter of Magna Charta, or the great charter forced, by the barons, from King John at Runnymede, in Surrey. Therein it is declared that the weights, all over England, shall be the same, although for different commodities there were two different kinds, Troy and Avoirdupois. The origin of both is taken from a grain of wheat gathered in the middle of an ear. The standard of measures was originally kept at Winchester, and by a law of King Edgar was ordained to be observed ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... to the charge of Brother Avoirdupois; and I acknowledge myself to be a worshipper at the shrine of Mr. Melancthon Sage, and I invoke a blessing upon the head of Monsieur Odervie, the chief cook. Our life on the ocean wave is a constant promotive ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... Suppose, for instance, the only ingredient having a noticeable quantity of protein is rice, and 1 lb. is used. The table is consulted and shows rice to contain eight per cent. protein. In 1 lb. avoirdupois there are 7,000 grains; eight per cent. of 7,000 is 70.00 x 8 560 grains. Therefore, in the dish prepared there are 560 grains of protein. It is as well after cooking to weight the entree or pudding and divide the number of ounces it weighs into 560, thus obtaining the number of grains per ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... up by troy weight, although drugs are bought by avoirdupois weight. There are twelve ounces to the pound troy, which is marked lb.; the ounce, which contains eight drachms, is marked [*ounce]i. [looks like a z on top of a 3]; the drachm, containing three scruples, is marked [*drachm]i. [looks like a 3]; and the scruple ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Uncle Moses, as the entire party addressed him, "Brother Avoirdupois;" and the lawyer retorted by christening the surgeon "Brother Adipose Tissue." The conductor of the party in Egypt had called them both "cupids;" and this term became very popular for the time. The other gentleman who had been saved from an untimely grave in ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... place in New South Wales named Grabben-Gullen, where the best potatoes in the world are grown. Great, solid, flowery beauties, weighing two pounds avoirdupois, are but ordinary specimens in this locality, and the allegorical bush statement for illustrating their uncommon size has it that they grow under the fences and trip the horses as they travel the lanes between the paddocks. Similarly, to explain the wonderful growth of vegetation ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... the Voorheeses came over and discussed their purchases, and Miss Wyatt, the sister, came with them. She was typically like Mrs. Voorhees, only younger, and with her figure in better restraint. She had so far successfully fought down an hereditary tendency to avoirdupois. She had brilliant yellow hair and a brilliant complexion, like her sister, and she was as well, even better, dressed. Ida had purchased that day a steamer-rug, a close little hat, and a long coat for the voyage, and the women talked over the purchases and ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... mere members of the human family, could we suppose them in a thoughtless moment to have carried into legislation a mildened modicum of that metaphorical language which forms the staple of debate, we should make no remonstrance. We recognize the severe justice of an ideal avoirdupois in literary criticism. We remember the unconscious sarcasm of the Atlantic Telegraph, as it sank heart-broken under the strain of conveying the answer of the Heavy Father of our political stage to the graceful "good-morning" of Victoria. The enthusiastic member of the Academy ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... gravitation; weight; heaviness &c adj.; specific gravity; pondorosity^, pressure, load; burden, burthen^; ballast, counterpoise; lump of, mass of, weight of. lead, millstone, mountain, Ossa on Pelion. weighing, ponderation^, trutination^; weights; avoirdupois weight, troy weight, apothecaries' weight; grain, scruple, drachma^, ounce, pound, lb, arroba^, load, stone, hundredweight, cwt, ton, long ton, metric ton, quintal, carat, pennyweight, tod^. [metric weights] gram, centigram, milligram, microgram, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... to account for the return of her color. It came rushing back splendidly. Cheeks, forehead, everything but nose, blushed. The hard work of lifting so much avoirdupois, and possibly, also, the novelty of supporting so much handsome fellow, intensified all her hues. Her eyes—blue, or that shade even more faithful than blue—deepened; and her pale golden hair grew ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... not for him to know at that stage of the game. He felt so small after the weary weeks of watching that he went and had himself weighed, devoutly certain that he shrunk respectably. He even went in for a savage system of training, calculated to reduce his avoirdupois. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... possible by forces and conditions that inflict weariness at times upon all, and cost the lives of many. Gravitation, forcing all men against the earth's surface with an energy measured by their weight avoirdupois, makes locomotion feasible; but by the same attraction it may draw one into the pit, over the precipice, to the bottom of the sea. What multitudes of lives does it yearly destroy! Why has it never occurred to some ingenious victim of a sluggish liver to represent Gravitation as a murderous monster ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... thread, of which, in some cases, it takes two or three hundred miles to weigh one pound. Even in what are termed medium numbers or counts of cotton yarn, there are from fifteen to twenty-five miles of thread in a pound avoirdupois, and more than a thousand million pounds of such yarns are ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... with suspicions if we may, and make a jolly comrade of him, in the name of the gods. Miserable! thrice miserable he, who is forever turning over and over one's character in his mind, and weighing by nice avoirdupois, the pros and the cons of his goodness and badness. For we are all good and bad. Give me the heart that's huge as all Asia; and unless a man, be a villain outright, account him one of the best tempered ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the continuance of any one regulated proportion between the respective values of the different metals in coin, the value of the most precious metal regulates the value of the whole coin. Twelve copper pence contain half a pound avoirdupois of copper, of not the best quality, which, before it is coined, is seldom worth seven-pence in silver. But as, by the regulation, twelve such pence are ordered to exchange for a shilling, they are in the market ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... contemplative Dutchmen on their first voyage in the Half Moon, sailing into New York Bay, prohibited by Hudson "from wearing more than five jackets and six pair of breeches." We see the scrupulously "honest" Dutch traders buying furs from the Indians, using an invariable scale of avoirdupois weights, a Dutchman's hand in the scale opposite the furs weighing one pound, his foot two pounds. We watch the puzzled Indians trying to account for the fact that the largest bundle of furs never weighed more than two ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... noticed Monona, and Ina did not defer even to Dwight. She, who measured delicate, troy occasions by avoirdupois, said brightly: ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... erroneous impression which you appear to harbor, touching my physique, I remit to you a photograph of a majority of myself. The photograph was made last December, when I was, so to speak, at my perihelion in the matter of avoirdupois. You may be gratified to know that I have not shrunken much since that time. I have taken the timely precaution to label the picture in order that none of your Fredericton people thumbing over your domestic album shall ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... letters occur again, for you know I am always longing to hear from you, when I cannot see you, and a few lines, if only to say you are well, will prevent unpleasant apprehensions. I am delighted at your increased bodily dimensions, and your diminished drapery. One hundred and twenty-eight avoirdupois is approximately a proper standard. Seven more pounds will make you all right. But I fear before I see you the unnatural life, which I fear you will lead in Baltimore, will reduce you to skin and bone. Do not ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... was sent up aloft; dragging myself up step by step, as if I were weighing the anchor. Small time then, to strip, and wring it out in a rain, when no hanging back or delay was permitted. No, no; up you go: fat or lean: Lambert or Edson: never mind how much avoirdupois you might weigh. And thus, in my own proper person, did many showers of rain reascend toward the skies, in accordance with the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... confidential about Mary, and the fortune he meant to bring her back, that I had a sort of maternal liking for him; and even a vicarious affection for Mary herself, the colour of whose eyes and hair - nay, whose weight avoirdupois - I was now accurately acquainted with. No, the honest fellow had not quite the grit of ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... to about an ounce, in our modern avoirdupois system. There was no accurate standard weight anywhere. Honest dealers tried to have weights which corresponded to custom. But it was easy to cheat by having two sets of weights, one for buying and one for selling. So when our shepherds came to town, ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... deified Dungi, an earlier king." The stone now weighs 978.309 grammes, which, making the requisite deductions for the wear and tear of time, would give 980 grammes, or rather more than 2 pounds 2 ounces avoirdupois. The Babylonian maneh, as fixed by Dungi and Nebuchadnezzar, thus agrees in weight rather with the Hebrew maneh of gold than with the "royal" maneh, which was equivalent to 2 ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... combine, and who can live not for to-day alone, but for to-morrow, for next month, for the next year, for ten years. This is the man whose volume will just as surely weigh down that of the unthinking man as a ton will weigh down a pound in the scale. Avoirdupois is moral, industrial, as well as material, in this respect; and the primary, most usual cause of unprosperity in industrial callings therefore lies in the want of intelligence,—either in the slender ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... and tried in succession, but not a key among them all is a duplicate of mine. What is to be done. Le portier looks as dejected as though Paris was about to be bombarded, as he goes down and breaks the dreadful news to le proprietaire. Up comes le proprietaire - avoirdupois three hundred pounds - sighing like an exhaust-pipe at every step. For fifteen unhappy minutes the skeleton-key is wriggled and twisted about again in the key- hole, and the fat proprietaire rubs his bald head impatiently, but all to no purpose. Each returns to his respective avocation. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... is more generally used in this country, is the English system. The hank is 840 yards, and the number of hanks in one pound avoirdupois is the count of the yarn. It is based on the finished yarn, and singles, two or three cord yarns of the same number all have the same yards ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... butter, sugar, and most articles used in cakes and pastry, a quart is generally about equal in quantity to a pound avoirdupois, (sixteen ounces.) Avoirdupois is the ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... miles an hour; but supposing it to be only five miles, the quantity which passes the falls in an hour is more than eighty-five millions of tuns avoirdupois; if we suppose it to be six, it will be more than one hundred and two millions; and in a day would exceed two thousand four hundred millions ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... as I fawncied, and doubtless was bestowed upon me as indicative of my lack of avoirdupois. And it was not entirely unnatural that they should do so, for at the time when I came to Winthrop I was very slight, very slight indeed. The appellation, or cognomen, was without doubt given in recognition of that fact, a custom not unknown, ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... visit. But that can't be. How much I wish it could! If only there were life-renewers as well as hair-renewers! They called me pretty at fourteen—said I had pretty ways, (one of them was one hundred and thirty-five avoirdupois,) and would certainly be a belle. But I proved too much for that. One hundred and seventy-five cut off all hope. I sighed, ate nothing, studied poetry, did a good deal of melancholy by moonlight and otherwise, but nothing ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... taken in, than our captain came down to her—a little, thin, spare man, but a man of weight nevertheless, for he brought a great pair of scales with him, and weighed everything that was put on board. I forget his real name, but the sailors christened him Captain Avoirdupois. He had a large book, and in it he inserted the weight of the ballast, and of the shot, water, provisions, coals, standing and running rigging, cables, and everything else. Then he weighed all the men, and all the midshipmen, and all the midshipmen's ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... and say, "My word!" and never let on. It was a wide space; I could tell you how wide, in chains and perches and furlongs and things, but that would not help you any. Those things sound well, but they are shadowy and indefinite, like troy weight and avoirdupois; nobody knows what they mean. When you buy a pound of a drug and the man asks you which you want, troy or avoirdupois, it is best to say "Yes," and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Californian miners had called, in their wrath, "dashed black dust;"[EN109] and when a second experiment yielded twenty-eight grammes (each fifteen grains and a half) and ten centigrammes from 111 grammes, or about a quarter of a pound avoirdupois. In the latter experiment also, the culot came away without the litharge, which almost always contains traces of silver and antimony. Hence we concluded that the proportions were 30:110—a magnificent result, considering that 12-1/2:100 is held to be rich ore in the silver mines ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... weighed heavily upon Abrahm Kantor in avoirdupois only. He was himself plus eighteen years, fifty pounds, and a new sleek pomposity that was absolutely oleaginous. It shone roundly in his face, doubling of chin, in the bulge of waistcoat, heavily gold-chained, and in eyes ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... that very lively girl, Annie Mation," pursued Neale, racking his brain to discover other punning words. "And despite her superabundance of avoirdupois, Ellie Phant ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... avdp. avoirdupois c.i.f. cost, insurance, and freight CY calendar year DWT deadweight ton est. estimate Ex-Im Export-Import Bank of the United States f.o.b. free on board FRG Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) FY fiscal year GDP gross domestic product GDR German Democratic Republic (East Germany) ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... numbered but two girls, the pig tossed his head, uttered a scornful grunt, and started slowly out of the garden. He was in no hurry. He had grown fat on these raids, and he did not propose to lose any of the avoirdupois thus gained, ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... the street where the rioters were, I turned and saw him, perfectly breathless, bear his two hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois against a door. It was not closed, but had only been slammed by the score of Zou-Zous enjoying the whisky within; and as I looked I saw a dignified colonel in the C.S. army turn a complete somersault into a group of red-legged devils, who ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... found variously spelled, "bahare," "bare," and "vare." Its value varies in different localities, there being two distinct weights—one, the great bahar, used for weighing cloves, other spices, etc.; and the small bahar, about 150 kilos or 400 pounds avoirdupois, used for weighing quicksilver, various metals, certain drugs, etc. John Saris, writing of the commerce of Bantam, says: "A sacke is called a Timbang, and two Timbanges is one Peecull, three Peeculls is a small bahar, and foure Peeculls and an halfe a great Bahar, which is foure hundred fortie ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... much more when the native states were in a condition of greater wealth and civilisation, as they undoubtedly were some centuries ago. Valentyn says that in some years Achin had exported 80 bahars, equivalent to 32,000 or 36,000 Lbs. avoirdupois (!). Of the other products named, lign-aloes or eagle-wood is a product of Sumatra, and is or was very abundant in Campar on the eastern coast. The Ain-i-Akbari says this article was usually brought to India from Achin and Tenasserim. Both this and spikenard ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... rise, there below us grazed the logy, lazy beeves, while the boys quietly rode round, silently moving them together as instructed. Siringo drove to their lead, and halting, we allowed the cattle to loiter past us on either side of the conveyance. It was an easy herd to show, for the pounds avoirdupois were there. Numerous big steers, out of pure curiosity, came up near the vehicle and innocently looked at us as if expecting a dole or sweetmeat. A snap of the finger would turn them, showing their ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... a like derivation. Seeds seem commonly to have supplied the unit. The original of the carat used for weighing in India is a small bean. Our own systems, both troy and avoirdupois, are derived primarily from wheat-corns. Our smallest weight, the grain, is a grain of wheat. This is not a speculation; it is an historically registered fact. Henry III. enacted that an ounce should be the weight of ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... qualities and the durability of the best American pianos are now generally acknowledged throughout the world. The solidity of construction is such that with a compass of seven and one-third octaves the tension of the strings amounts to about 50,000 pounds avoirdupois. The hammers are larger and heavier, the action more responsive, and the singing quality and sustaining power has reached remarkable perfection. Perhaps the most curious and important of all American improvements in this direction is ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... woods lesson of substitution or doing without. You find that discomfort is as soon forgotten as pain; that almost anything can be endured if it is but for the time being; that absolute physical comfort is worth but a very small price in avoirdupois. Your pack shrinks. ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... adjusting their spectacles, hunting in the precise shelf for the precise quality demanded, then (quality found) the haggling as to quantum—considering whether it should be Apothecary's weight or Avoirdupois, or English measure or Flemish—and, finally, the hullaboloo they make if the customer is not perfectly satisfied with the monstrous little he gets for his money,—I don't wonder, for my part, how one loses temper and patience, and sends Pride, Honor, and Apology, all to the devil. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... nothing but doses of medicines, which must be corrected as is now done; but as it would be much better that the identical pound was used by all. I would propose that the Amsterdam or Paris pound be assumed as the standard, being now the most universal in Europe: it is to our avoirdupois pound as 109 is to 100. Our avoirdupois pound contains 7,000 of our grains, and the Paris pound 7,630 of our grains, but it contains 9,376 Paris grains, so that the division into 10,000 would very little affect the Paris ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... parts. Mr Burn, the gunner, seemed to more than participate in my feelings. Our two bow-guns were very imposing-looking magnates. They would deliver a message at three miles' distance, though it were no less than a missive of eighteen pounds avoirdupois; and we were now barely within half that distance. Mr Burn was particularly excellent at two things—a long shot, and the long bow. In all the ships that I have sailed, I never yet met with his equal at a cool, embellished, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... EXPERIMENTALIST. Formerly the pint used in the compounding of medicines, chemicals, &c. consisted of sixteen fluid ounces, weighing one pound Avoirdupois weight. Now the imperial pint of twenty ounces is in general use. The Troy and apothecaries' ounce are the same, and contain forty grains more than the Avoirdupois ounce. In making collodion, take any quantity of ether, and dissolve the gun cotton ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... usual swift wolf's lope he was out of sight over the long stretches of heather and turf so speedily that he arrived at the drying-ground on the hillside before Luckie MacMorrine, handicapped by her twenty stone avoirdupois, had perspired thither. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... his honour, where three were wont to suffice, shone mellowly in the little room, and Rette de Lancy, still comely despite her forty years and a certain lavishness in the matter of avoirdupois, set down in the midst of the table a steaming dish with a cover. There were a white cloth of bleached linen and cups of blue ware that had come with her and Jack from across seas, also a silver coffee-urn that had been her great-grandmother's. ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... schoolmaster, occupied with his pupils, and not liking the interruption, hastily, and without further inquiries of the messenger, turned over his Bonnycastle, and arriving at the table of avoirdupois weight, replied, "Tell your father that sixteen ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... of the tree, still higher up than those on which the staging was to rest. One stood above to guide the huge piece of plank-work, while all the rest exerted their strength upon the ropes below. Even little Jan pulled with all his might—though a single pound avoirdupois weight would have been about the measure of ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... of how he felt as the days and weeks wore along and the pounds of avoirdupois slipped away one by one is interesting. The remarkable point about it is that he continued his work and kept well. He gave his account of it yesterday to a reporter for The Press. Mr. Rathbun is known by the business men for blocks around his own place of ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... weighed about sixty minae, or avoirdupois pounds (see Hooper on Ancient Weights, Measures, &c.;) but among the modern Greeks, that classic appellation was extended to a weight of one hundred, or one hundred and twenty-five pounds, (Ducange, talanton.) Leonardus Chiensis measured the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... at least, as her twofold personality admitted of private confidences. I have listened to the touching experiences of the Bearded Lady, whose rough cheeks belie her susceptible heart. Miss Jane Campbell has allowed me to question her on the delicate subject of avoirdupois equivalents; and the armless fair one, whose embrace no monarch could hope to win, has wrought me a watch-paper with those despised digits which have been degraded from gloves to boots in our evolution from the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... easily understood by a child who distinctly perceives that the perpendicular columns, or places in which figures are written, may distinguish their value under various different denominations, as gallons, furlongs, shillings, &c. We should not tease children with long sums in avoirdupois weight, or load their frail memories with tables of long-measure, and dry-measure, and ale-measure in the country, and ale-measure in London; only let them cast up a few sums in different denominations, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... the boy. He seemed to him much like any other boy of his age, but such remarkable things in the way of avoirdupois poundage and teething, serenity of temper and quickness of apprehension were explained to him that he felt that he must be in ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... any reading so hopelessly heavy as large portions of that which claims the name of light. Light writing it may be; but, considered as reading, one would be unjust to charge upon it any lack of avoirdupois. It is like the bran of wheat, which, though of little weight in the barrel, is heavy enough in the stomach,—Dr. Sylvester Graham to the contrary notwithstanding. It is related of an Italian culprit, that, being required, in punishment of his crime, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... were very glad to get back to the hotel in the street of the legations, and they did not go out again that day. The question of visiting the Great Wall then came up for discussion. Brother Avoirdupois and Brother Adipose Tissue declared in the beginning that they would not go; and the mandarin laughed heartily when these names were applied to them, and still more when ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... nothing and argued that all the weight was in his own favor. The keeka (girl) had made a mistake. And to a man who measured everything by worldly icties this was sound argument, for the only big thing about Peter was his avoirdupois—barring his heart, of course. In the heat of his argument Johnny determined to deprive Peter of his sacred property. And among the Indians this is not nearly so hazardous or hopeless or criminal an undertaking ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... and then landed them safe outside. Then he returned and entered the room where the plunder he sought lay. Thanks to his friend, the way was easy, and his art was not required to secure it. There were 600 ounces in silver bars, a pretty good load in avoirdupois, but he only made one journey of it, mounted the wall ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... 'Wayside,' the home of Miss Janet Sweet. Janet is a dear soul and very nicelooking; tall, but not over-tall; stoutish, yet with a certain restraint of outline suggestive of a thrifty soul who is not going to be overlavish even in the matter of avoirdupois. She has a knot of soft, crimpy, brown hair with a thread of gray in it, a sunny face with rosy cheeks, and big, kind eyes as blue as forget-me-nots. Moreover, she is one of those delightful, old-fashioned cooks who don't care a ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... adhering to the bones; their pile was coarse and open; and few of them gave more than six or eight quarts of milk a day when in their best condition, or weighed, when fat, more than from a hundred to a hundred and sixty pounds avoirdupois, rejecting offal. ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... able to give in the usual measures, either avoirdupois or metric, capacity of the ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... grounds for it. Most of us, as thou sayest, have been upon the wheel of these artificers; and little was left but rags when we got off. Sanctified folks are the cleverest skinners in all Christendom, and their Jordan tans and constringes us to the avoirdupois of mummies. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... in comparison. From the Picture-Gallery you turn (to right or left is not said, nor does it matter) into a suite of fourteen great rooms, each more splendid than the other: lustre from the ceiling of the first room, for example, is of solid silver; weighs, in pounds avoirdupois I know not what, but in silver coin "10,000 crowns:" ceilings painted as by Correggio; "wall-mirrors between each pair of windows are twelve feet high, and their piers (TRUMEAUX) are of massive silver; in front of each mirror, table can be laid for twelve;" ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Canning, English Ambassador at Constantinople, I was kindly permitted to visit the Sultan's harem as often as I pleased and there look upon the 'lights of the world.' These 'lights of the world' consisted of five hundred bodies of unwieldy avoirdupois. The ladies of the harem gazed upon ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... stores of the Kandyan government, (a fortiori then in the particular section of the Kandyan forces which we faced,) there had not been more gunpowder remaining at the hour of Major Davie's infamous capitulation than 750 lbs. avoirdupois; other munitions of war having been in the same state of bankruptcy. Five minutes more of resistance, one inspiration of English pluck, would have placed the Kandyan army in our power—would have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... novice coming to learn the game, or a veteran resuming training, should prepare himself for the hard work in sight. I don't mean that he should be down to edge, but in good ruddy health. As a matter of fact, a man is far better off if he can start the season with eight or ten pounds of extra avoirdupois; and four or five pounds above "pink of condition" may be carried throughout the season with good results. They will prevent one's getting cold while in the water and keep one from going stale, a very ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton
... requisite is a cup or vessel of convenient form, capable of holding a suitable quantity of water, say about two pounds avoirdupois. Berthelot decidedly prefers a simple can of platinum, very thin, with a light cover of the same metal, to be fastened on by a bayonet hitch. For strictly laboratory work this may be the best form; but for the hasty manipulation and rough usage of practical boiler testing something ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... produced some notable stones. From the Premier mine a diamond weighing more than three thousand carats—one and thirty-seven hundredths pounds avoirdupois—was obtained. This stone, more than twice the size of any heretofore found and estimated to be worth five million dollars, was insured for two million five hundred thousand dollars. It was named the Cullinan, from one Tom Cullinan, who ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... embonpoint, but there be other matrons who hang so uncertainly about that borderland of beauty that they somehow manage to convey the hint that only by an unwinking watchfulness do they succeed in foiling the onslaughts of his ogreship of avoirdupois. In their eye lurks terror and in their lines one spells their secret of rebellious hunger; of Delsarte, gymnastics and massage. Sometimes the matron is an improvement on the maid. But this is not always true. For those who turn coarse and harsh with years, we recommend Christian Science ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... of food required to sustain an ordinary man in health and strength, I have previously stated, is about two pounds avoirdupois daily, and an equal weight of oxygen is necessary to the integrity of the vitalizing processes undergone by the food, and to maintain the physical temperature. When the requisite supply of oxygen is reduced, the extrication of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... God, see and feel more clearly and more justly than we do. For this much is sure—Jeanette was right in keeping to the end the image of Colonel Martin Culpepper as a knight-errant, who needed only a bespangled steed, a little less avoirdupois, and a foolish cause to set him battling in the tourney. As it was, in this humdrum world, the colonel could do nothing more heroic than come rattling down Main Street into the child's heart, sitting with some dignity in his weather-beaten buggy, while instead of shining ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... resided a long time in the Indian Archipelago, calculates that an English acre could contain four hundred and thirty-five sago-trees, which would yield one hundred and twenty thousand five hundred pounds avoirdupois of fecula, or more than eight thousand pounds yearly. History of the Indian Archipelago volume 1 pages 387 and 393. This produce is triple that of corn, and double that of potatoes in France. But the plantain produces, on the same surface of land, still more alimentary ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... measure and weight rising ten times above the former. All calculations of prices would then be made by simple multiplication. What a gala-day for school-boys when the pence and shilling table would be abolished by act of parliament, and there would no longer be the table of avoirdupois-weight to learn, nor troy-weight, nor apothecaries', nor long-measure, nor square-measure, nor cloth-measure, nor liquid-measure, nor dry-measure, but one decimal scale of weights and measures would suffice for every commodity, and there would only be their names to get by ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... is a fearfully heavy boat. The long Naval oar is surprisingly full of avoirdupois weight. True, a midshipman has to handle but one oar, but it takes him many, many days to learn how to ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... successful attempts of those who were already thinnest dust, yet whose names have so much personality in them that a sovereign presence fills the place where they are spoken,—sculptors whose statues step as it were unexpectedly (themselves surprised) into sight, with none of the avoirdupois of later stone-work; that heaviness which, in some of the finest of these modern figures, causes them to pause involuntarily, as if snowed upon. The high degree of smoothness of the old statues, as well as their mellowed whiteness, may give ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... holding up a spangled dress, admiringly. "Ain't dat beautiful!" She drew near the mirror, attempting to see the reflection of the tinsel and chiffon against her very ample background of gingham and avoirdupois. "You'd sure be a swell nigger wid dat on, Honey," she chuckled to herself. "Wouldn't dem deacons holler if dey ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... considerable. A mass of common pyrites (bisulphide of iron) weighing only 12 lbs. is competent for the construction of the famous 'Welcome Nugget,' an Australian find having weight equal to 152 lbs. avoirdupois. Such masses of pyrites are by no means uncommon in our drifts or the beds of our mountain streams. Thus we find that no straining of the imagination is required to conceive of this mode of formation for the huge masses of gold found in Australia in ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... those who procure it at the rate of six Spanish dollars the pound, or eight dollars the catty, and sells in the China market at Canton for nine to twelve dollars the pound, or twelve to fifteen hundred dollars the pekul of a hundred catties or one hundred thirty-three pounds and a third, avoirdupois. When of superior quality it sells for two thousand dollars, and I have been assured that some small choice samples have produced upwards of thirty dollars per catty.* It is estimated that the whole quantity annually brought down for sale on the western side of the island does not ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... the same way. Shelley was a poet, and perhaps idealized his friends. He saw them, probably, in a state of pure intellect. I am not a poet; I look at people in the concrete. The most obvious thing about my friends is their avoirdupois; and I prefer that they should wear their own cloaks and suffer me to wear mine. There is no neck in the world that I want my collar to span except my own. It is very exasperating to me to go to my bookcase and miss a book of which I am in immediate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... and murmured politely. The stranger dismounted from the wagon with the awkwardness of age and avoirdupois. John Dysart stood just behind his guest, describing him as ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... expedition, and no one in town had seen her. The whole neighborhood was aroused, and a search party was just being organized when the doctor's carriage drove up to the gate, and the physician, angry, dismayed and alarmed, hurried up the path as fast as his avoirdupois would permit, flung open the screen and called imperiously, "Miss Gail, girls, any of you! It's all my fault! Peace is down at the Fisher house watching over Annette. I sent her there this afternoon while I went after a ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... showed the marks more plainly, for his face was drawn, his eyes were sunken as if from hunger, and his whole body seemed to have fallen away till his uniform hung upon him loose, unkempt, and careless. It was as if hope had been a thing of avoirdupois, and when taken away had caused a shrinkage. He had interrogated Stark again after getting the doctor, but the man had only cursed at him, declaring that his daughter was out of reach, where he would take ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... ordinarily for weighing foods is the table of AVOIRDUPOIS WEIGHT. Another table of weights, called the table of Troy weight, is used by goldsmiths and jewelers for weighing precious metals. It should not be confused with avoirdupois weight, however, because its pound contains only 12 ounces, ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... for poetry. But no one had seen any change in him in those months; and, indeed, there had been little or no change, for he had an equable and practical, though imaginative, disposition, despite his avoirdupois, and his new purpose did not stir him yet ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... grains. The ladies' coloured muslin dresses, mentioned in the table subjoined, cost ten shillings per dress, and each weigh six ounces; the cotton from which they are made weighing nearly six and two-ninth ounces avoirdupois weight. ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... Charlemagne in her own right. Her husband's empire is but a mere arondissement compared with the domain that does homage to her sceptre. Sheffield is the great arsenal of her armaments. Sheffield cases ships of war with iron plates a foot thick; but that is nothing, in pounds avoirdupois, compared with the weight of steel it spins into elastic springs for casing the skirts of two hundred millions of the fair Eugenie's sex and lieges in the two hemispheres. It is estimated that ten thousand tons of steel are annually ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... the usual call upon them during the first month, and when, two months after the wedding, they were spending the evening with us, I asked him if his wife had told him about my relations with her avoirdupois? ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... the treaty "decreeing for ever a common sovereign for England and France," a treaty which, it is minded, "stood no while." Again, some dubious antiquary has put it forward as the home of that variety of weights "which are not avoirdupois." ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... instead of frowsing up here all the afternoon with your books, you should have been on the touch-line watching those Biffenites at their new tricks. Your opinion then would have a little avoirdupois. As it is, you Perry Exhibit, it is ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... side road there suddenly trotted a piebald pony, drawing a low, basket phaeton, in which sat two prim, little, old ladies, a fat one and a lean one. Despite the difference in their avoirdupois the two old ladies showed themselves to be ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... tradesmen whom he honored with his custom, "Mr. Roundabout? Lor' bless you! I carry him up to bed drunk every night in the week." He, Tomkins, being a man of seven stone weight and five feet high; whereas his employer was—but here modesty interferes, and I decline to enter into the avoirdupois question. ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with dry flour, and at the end of four hours more, it is again kneaded for half an hour, and divided into quartern and half-quartern loaves. The weight of a quartern loaf, before baking, should be four pounds fifteen ounces; after baking, four pounds six ounces, avoirdupois. When the dough has received its proper shape for loaves, it is put into the oven, at a heat that will scorch flour without burning, where it is baked two hours and a half, or ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... one to fourteen, and computing from other known weights he determined that "when a column of quicksilver thirty inches high is sustained in the barometer, as it frequently happens, a column of air that presses upon an inch square near the surface of the earth must weigh about fifteen avoirdupois pounds."(4) As the pressure of air at the sea-level is now estimated at 14.7304 pounds to the square inch, it will be seen that Boyle's calculation ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... despairingly ask herself what was to be done now, Romney answered—not in words, but in deeds. He coolly picked Lucinda up in his arms, as if she had been a child instead of a full grown woman of no mean avoirdupois, and began to wade with her through ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... volume of an old cyclopaedia, where he read all he could find about gold. Thence descending to the kitchen, he rummaged out a rusty old pair of scales, and with their help arrived at the conclusion that the horse weighed about three pounds avoirdupois: it might be worth about a hundred and fifty pounds. Ready money, this was a treasure in the eyes of one whose hand had seldom indeed closed upon more than ten pounds at once. Here was large provision for the four years of his boy's college life! Nor was the margin it would leave for his ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... thee! Curse thy withered legs, and is it thus thou stumbleth? On—up with thee and that mountain of flesh thou carriest about with thee." And the mountain of flesh would be lifted—it was carried as lightly by the finely-feathered legs and the broad haunches as if the firm avoirdupois were so much gossamer tissue. On and on the neat, strong hoofs rang their metallic click, clack along the smooth macadam. They had carried us past the farm-houses, the cliffs, the meadows, and the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... three-quarter pounds avoirdupois—that's the correct weight. The first time or two we didn't get much—they were still shy of us. But after that we made some heavy; hauls. Twice we brought down close on two thousand. Once there was three thousand, almost ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... much truth in this. Pressure was high. People were mashed and squeezed together. Those who, by reason of a lack of avoirdupois, were less firmly attached to the ground, were lifted bodily. Walter hung suspended in mid-air and looked over the heads of ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... Socialists, utterly corrupt and callous to the sufferings of the people. "Whenever an American is met abroad with the assertion that government in the Republic is corrupt, he can safely say that for one ounce of corruption in America there is a full pound avoirdupois in Britain."[578] "It is extremely doubtful, indeed, whether either slavery or the slave-trade would be abandoned in the British Empire if they still existed to-day, and their abrogation and suppression depended upon the English House of Commons. The ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... stout Englishman fashion, struggling into his overcoat, he sprang forward with a light, friendly air and helped him. 'He did not do it with ostentatious politeness or with the manner of active youth giving generous aid to elderly avoirdupois. He did it as though it occurred to him as a natural result of being ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... looked and listened. The solitude was profound. Then mounting the tree and standing over its axis he tried to rock it as the others had. Alas! Johnny's heart was stout, his courage unlimited, his perception all-embracing, his ambition boundless; but his actual avoirdupois was only that of a boy of ten. The tree did not move. But Johnny had played see-saw before, and quietly moved towards its highest part. It slowly descended under the changed centre of gravity, and the root arose, ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte |
