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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Avoirdupois \Av'oir*du*pois"\ ([a^]v'[~e]r*d[-u]*poiz"), noun & a. [OE. aver de peis, goods of weight, where peis is fr. OF. peis weight, F. poids, L. pensum. See {Aver}, noun, and {Poise}, noun]
1. Goods sold by weight. [Obs.]
2. Avoirdupois weight.
3. Weight; heaviness; as, a woman of much avoirdupois. [Colloq.]
{Avoirdupois weight}, a system of weights by which coarser commodities are weighed, such as hay, grain, butter, sugar, tea.
Note: The standard Avoirdupois pound of the United States is equivalent to the weight of 27.7015 cubic inches of distilled water at 62[deg] Fahrenheit, the barometer being at 30 inches, and the water weighed in the air with brass weights. In this system of weights 16 drams make 1 ounce, 16 ounces 1 pound, 25 pounds 1 quarter, 4 quarters 1 hundred weight, and 20 hundred weight 1 ton. The above pound contains 7,000 grains, or 453.54 grams, so that 1 pound avoirdupois is equivalent to 1 31-144 pounds troy. (See {Troy weight}.) Formerly, a hundred weight was reckoned at 112 pounds, the ton being 2,240 pounds (sometimes called a long ton).
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
avoirdupois
noun
1: a system of weights based on the 16-ounce pound (or 7,000 grains) [syn: {avoirdupois weight}]
2: excess bodily weight; "she found fatness disgusting in herself as well as in others" [syn: {fatness}, {fat}, {blubber}] [ant: {leanness}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
23 Moby Thesaurus words for "avoirdupois": beef, beefiness, deadweight, fatness, gravity, gross weight, heaviness, heft, heftiness, liveweight, neat weight, net, net weight, overbalance, overweight, ponderability, ponderosity, ponderousness, poundage, tonnage, underweight, weight, weightiness
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