The hundredweight (abbreviation: cwt), formerly also known as the centum weight or quintal, is a British imperial and United States customary unit of

weight In science and engineering, the weight of an object is a quantity associated with the gravitational force exerted on the object by other objects in its environment, although there is some variation and debate as to the exact definition. Some sta ...

mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

. Its value differs between the United States customary and British imperial systems. The two values are distinguished in

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...

as the short and long hundredweight and in

British English British English is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom, especially Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to ...

as the cental and imperial hundredweight. * The short hundredweight or cental of is defined in the United States customary system. * The long or imperial hundredweight of 8 stone or is defined in the British imperial system. Under both conventions, there are 20 hundredweight in a ton, producing a " short ton" of 2,000 pounds (907.2 kg) and a " long ton" of 2,240 pounds (1,016 kg).

History

The hundredweight has had many values. In England in around 1300, different hundreds (''centum'' in

Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. It was also the administrative language in the former Western Roman Empire, Roman Provinces of Mauretania, Numidi ...

) were defined. The Weights and Measures Act 1835 formally established the present imperial hundredweight of . The United States and Canada came to use the term "hundredweight" to refer to a unit of . This measure was specifically banned from British use—upon risk of being sued for

fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...

—by the Weights and Measures Act 1824 ( 5 Geo. 4. c. 74), but in 1879 the measure was legalised under the name "cental" in response to legislative pressure from British merchants importing

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

and

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

from the United States into the United Kingdom.

Use

The short hundredweight is commonly used as a measurement in the United States in the sale of livestock and some

cereal A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize ( Corn). Edible grains from other plant families, ...

grains and oilseeds,

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...

, and concrete additives and on some commodities in futures exchanges. A few decades ago, commodities weighed in terms of long hundredweight included cattle, cattle fodder, fertilizers, coal, some industrial chemicals, other industrial materials, and so on. However, since the increasing usage of the metric system in most English-speaking countries, it is now used to a far lesser extent. Church bell ringers use the unit commonly, although church bell manufacturers are increasingly moving over to the metric system . Older blacksmiths'

anvil An anvil is a metalworking tool consisting of a large block of metal (usually Forging, forged or Steel casting, cast steel), with a flattened top surface, upon which another object is struck (or "worked"). Anvils are massive because the hi ...

s are often stamped with a three-digit number indicating their total weight in hundredweight, quarter-hundredweight (, abbreviated qr), and pounds. Thus, an anvil stamped "1.1.8" will weigh ( + + ). The same three part scheme is used for church bells (formatted cwt–qr–lb). The long hundredweight is used as a measurement of vehicle weight in the Bailiwick of Guernsey. It was also previously used to indicate the maximum recommended carrying load of vans and trucks, such as the Ford Thames 5 and 7 cwt vans and the 8, 15, 30 and 60 cwt Canadian Military Pattern trucks.

Europe

In Europe outside the British Isles, a centum or quintal was never defined in terms of British units. Instead, it was based on the kilogramme or former customary units. It is usually abbreviated q. It was in Germany, in France, in Austria, etc. The unit was phased out or metricized after the introduction of the

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that standardization, standardizes a set of base units and a nomenclature for describing relatively large and small quantities via decimal-based multiplicative unit prefixes. Though the rules gover ...

in the 1790s, being occasionally retained in informal use up to the mid-20th century.

References

{{United States Customary Units Units of mass Imperial units Customary units of measurement in the United States

History

Use

Europe

See also

References