Pound

How to spell pound

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce pound

What does pound mean?

1. nounA unit of weight equal to sixteen ounces.
2. nounThe basic unit of money in the United Kingdom and several other countries.
3. verbTo strike or hit something heavily and repeatedly.
4. nounAn enclosure where stray animals or impounded vehicles are kept.

Pound in a sentence

• noun

  The recipe calls for one pound of plain flour.

• noun

  The value of the pound rose against the dollar overnight.

• verb

  Workers pound the hot metal into shape on the anvil.

• noun

  The stray dog was collected by the warden and taken to the local pound.

• noun

  Each sealed box of nails weighs nearly a pound.

• noun

  She had to feed another pound into the parking meter.

Where does pound come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The weight and money senses go back to Old English pund, which English absorbed very early from the Latin phrase libra pondo, literally 'a pound by weight', where pondo meant 'by weight' and came from pendere, 'to weigh'. That same Latin libra is why the abbreviation for the weight is 'lb' and why the pound sterling symbol is the looping '\u00a3'. The verb 'to pound', meaning to strike or crush repeatedly, has a separate native origin in Old English punian, 'to beat or pulverise', and only later picked up an unetymological 'd' on the end. The sense of an enclosure for stray animals or impounded cars comes from yet another Old English word, pund, meaning an enclosed space. Three different threads thus braided together into one modern spelling, which is why a single short word covers weight, money, beating and a holding pen.

How the word is built

• pound (single root word, from Old English pund; no productive prefix or suffix)