ounce: English has two separate words ounce. The ‘measure of weight’ [14] is etymologically the same word as inch. It comes from the same ultimate source, Latin uncia ‘twelfth part’, but whereas inch reached English via prehistoric Germanic, ounce’s route was through Old French unce. Its original use was in the Troy system of weights, where it still denotes ‘one twelfth of a pound’, but in the avoirdupois system it came to be applied to ‘one sixteenth of a pound’.
Its abbreviation, oz [16], comes from Italian onza. Ounce [13] ‘big cat’ comes from the same source as lynx (and indeed it originally meant ‘lynx’; ‘snow leopard’ is an 18th-century reapplication of the name). It represents an alteration of Old French lonce, based on the misapprehension that the initial l represented the definite article.
This in turn came via Vulgar Latin *luncia from Latin lynx, source of English lynx. => inch, one; light, lynx
ounce (n.1)
unit of weight, early 14c., from Old French once, unce, a measure of weight or time (12c.), from Latin uncia "one-twelfth part" (of a pound, foot, etc.), from Latin unus "one" (see one). The Latin word had been adopted in Old English as ynce (see inch). It was one-twelfth of a pound in the Troy system of weights, but one-sixteenth in avoirdupois. Abbreviation oz. is from older Italian onza. Also used in Middle English as a measure of time (7.5 seconds) and length (about 3 inches).
ounce (n.2)
"wildcat," c. 1300, from Old French once "lynx" (13c.), from lonce, with l- mistaken as definite article, from Vulgar Latin *luncea, from Latin lyncea "lynx-like," from lynx (see lynx). Originally the common lynx, later extended to other wildcats, now mainly used of the mountain-panther or snow leopard of Asia.
双语例句
1. This little ball of gold weighs a quarter of an ounce.
这个小金球重0.25盎司。
来自柯林斯例句
2. If only my father had possessed an ounce of business sense.
要是我父亲有一点点经商的头脑就好了。
来自柯林斯例句
3. There's not an ounce of truth in her story.
她所说的一点都不真实。
来自《权威词典》
4. He poured in every ounce of power but couldn't make it.
