picul
English
Alternative forms
- pical, pikal, pikol, pikul
- pico, pecul, peecul, peecull (obsolete)
Etymology
From Malay pikul, with influence from earlier Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese pico.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈpɪkəl/
- Rhymes: -ɪkəl
- Homophone: pickle
Noun
picul (plural piculs)
- (units of measure) A traditional South and East Asian unit of weight, based upon the load of a shoulder pole and varying by place and over time but usually standardized at about 60 kg.
- c. 1605, John Saris, quoted in Anthony Farrington's The English Factory in Japan (1991), p. 56:
- Powder sugar of China, the hundred cattees or peecull worth fortie to fiftie.
- 1888, Archibald John Little, Through the Yang-tse Gorges, p. 279:
- The coal is sold for 130 cash... per picul of 133 pounds.
- c. 1605, John Saris, quoted in Anthony Farrington's The English Factory in Japan (1991), p. 56:
Synonyms
- pingo (Sri Lanka, dated)
- dan (Chinese); tam, tan (Cantonese)
Translations
Translations
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References
- “picul, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2006.