ounce

noun

USOWNS/aʊns/

Pluralounces

8 meanings of ounce

Practice

1
nouncountable
A unit of weight equal to about 28 grams, or one sixteenth of a pound.
About as heavy as a single slice of bread.
Add an ounce of butter to the warm pan.
The recipe calls for four ounces of flour.
Note
2
nouncountable
A unit of liquid volume used in the United States, equal to about 30 milliliters.
About the amount that fills a small shot glass.
Pour one ounce of syrup into the tall glass.
The small bottle holds eight ounces of water.
Note
3
nounfigurativelycountable
A very small amount of something, only a little bit.
Like a single drop in a big bucket.
She didn't have an ounce of energy left after the long shift.
There wasn't an ounce of doubt in his mind.
Similarbit, shred, scrap, iota, grain
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4
nouncountable
A unit of weight used for gold and silver, equal to about 31 grams.
An ounce of gold is worth thousands of dollars.
She sold three ounces of silver to the dealer.
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5
nouncountable
A unit of liquid volume used in Britain, equal to about 28 milliliters.
An imperial pint holds twenty ounces of liquid.
She measured one ounce of vanilla for the British recipe.
6
nouncountable
A snow leopard, a large gray wild cat from the high mountains of central Asia.
Like a leopard built for living in cold, snowy mountains.
The ounce stalked silently along the snowy ridge at dusk.
High in the Himalayas, ounces hunt blue sheep among the cliffs.
Note
7
nouncountable
A fierce wild cat from Mexican folk stories, said to be an unusually aggressive cougar.
Ranchers blamed the missing calves on an ounce prowling the foothills.
The villagers swore an ounce had been killing their goats at night.
Similaronza
Note

Less common meaning

8
nounarchaic
A large wild cat, such as a lynx or a cougar.
Like a wild cousin of the house cat, only much bigger.
The hunters spoke of an ounce prowling the wooded hills.
Halloa! another prey, The nimble Antelope! The ounce is freed; one spring, And his talons are sheath’d in her shoulders, And his teeth are red in her gore.
1801, Robert Southey, Thalaba the DestroyerHere, ounce means a large wild cat, set loose to hunt.
Note

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of ounce apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origins

Meanings 1–5

It comes from Latin uncia, a Roman ounce, and goes back to a very old word meaning "one."

Meanings 6–8

It comes from a French word for "lynx." People wrongly split the word lonce, thinking the l was the article "the."