pennyweight

[ pen-ee-weyt ]

noun
  1. (in troy weight) a unit of 24 grains or 1/20 of an ounce (1.56 grams). Abbreviation: dwt, pwt

Origin of pennyweight

1
1350–1400; Middle English penyweight,Old English penega gewihte.See penny, weight

Words Nearby pennyweight

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use pennyweight in a sentence

  • Forty thousand ounces of gold, mates, not a pennyweight less?'

    Grif | B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon
  • A pennyweight, according to the old saying, is enough; for being thus used it bringeth two commodities.

  • Their minds, their wills, their efforts, their physical strength to the last ounce and pennyweight belonged indissolubly to him.

    A Man's Woman | Frank Norris
  • Scatter a pennyweight of it upon my tombstone; and so lay my in-fi-ni-te-si-mal ap-pa-ri-ti-on!

    Memoirs of a Midget | Walter de la Mare
  • Equilibrium, however, was restored by the addition of a pennyweight and five grains to the opposite side.

British Dictionary definitions for pennyweight

pennyweight

/ (ˈpɛnɪˌweɪt) /


noun
  1. a unit of weight equal to 24 grains or one twentieth of an ounce (Troy)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012