DictionaryRoot: tunne
Old English

tunne

cask, barrel

1 / 1
A pallet of heavy stone blocks on an industrial scale displaying exactly '2000 lb', United States short ton, no other words.
noun

ton

TUN/tʌn/

A unit of weight equal to two thousand US pounds.

Etymology

The barrel word shifted from a container to the quantity needed to fill it, then to a weight measure. In United States usage, that measure is standardized at 2,000 pounds.

Full entry

Related word entries