Hun"dred*weight` (?), n. A denomination of weight, containing 100, 112, or 120 pounds avoirdupois, according to differing laws or customs. By the legal standard of England it is 112 pounds. In most of the United States, both in practice and by law, it is 100 pounds avoirdupois, the corresponding ton of 2,000 pounds, sometimes called the short ton, being the legal ton.

• A measure of weight containing 100 pounds in the U.S. or 112 pounds in the United Kingdom.
       Quotations
       *1882: The hundredweight of 112 avoirdupois lbs. becomes general in the period before me, and is employed for the commoner kinds of materials. — James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 4, p. 209.