There are a lot of different ounces, including:

avoirdupois ounce (mass, except precious metals and medicine)
Troy ounce (mass, precious metals only:  gold, silver, platinum)
apothecary ounce (mass, medicine)
US fluid ounce (volume)
UK fluid ounce (volume)
ounce force (engineering, probably an avoirdupois at some particular gravity)

12 troy ounces = 1 troy pound
12 apothecary ounces = 1 apothecary pound
16 avoirdupois ounces = 1 avoirdupois pound
16 US fluid ounces = 1 US liquid pint
20 UK fluid ounces = 1 imperial pint

Finally, the Latin root of ounce is "uncia," meaning a twelfth.  Note that the 
more common ounces are 1/16ths and 1/20ths. 

On Thursday 11 March 2004 22:36, Predrag Lezaic wrote:
> I have been using this site
> http://www.sciencemadesimple.net/EASYweight.html to convert grams
> -ounces etc but was surprised when I had a choice between troy or
> avoirdupois ounces. What the heck is this? Like one is not complicated
> enough. It turns out that products that I am importing from europe are
> using avoirdupois conversio.
>
> Thanks,
> Predrag

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