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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

ounce.

An avoirdupois ounce, weighing ¹⁄₁₆ of an avoirdupois pound, or 28.349523125 grams.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/aʊns/
  1. An avoirdupois ounce, weighing ¹⁄₁₆ of an avoirdupois pound, or 28.349523125 grams.

  2. A troy ounce, weighing ¹⁄₁₂ of a troy pound, or 480 grains, or 31.1034768 grams.

  3. A US fluid ounce, with a volume of ¹⁄₁₆ of a US pint, 1.804688 cubic inches or 29.5735295625 millilitres.

  4. A British imperial fluid ounce, with a volume of ¹⁄₂₀ of an imperial pint, 1.733871 cubic inches or 28.4130625 millilitres.

  5. Any small amount, a little bit.

    figuratively
    He didn't feel even an ounce of regret for his actions.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English ounce, unce, from Middle French once, from Latin ū̆ncia (“Roman ounce, various similar units”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *óynos (“one”). Doublet of a, one, inch, uncia, onça, onza, oka, ouguiya, and awqiyyah.

noun/aʊns/
  1. A large wild feline, such as a lynx or cougar.

    archaic
  2. Synonym of snow leopard, Panthera uncia.

  3. Synonym of onza, a particularly aggressive cougar or jaguarundi in Mexican folklore.

Where this word comes from

From Middle French once, from Old French lonce (“lynx”), by false division (the l was thought to be the article), from Italian lonza, ultimately from Ancient Greek λύγξ (lúnx, “lynx”). Doublet of onza and lynx.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.