- Quintal
The quintal or centner is a historical unit of
mass with many different definitions in different countries, but usually it is 100 base units of mass, e.g. pounds.Both terms share their roots in the
Classical Latin "centenarius", meaning "hundredlike", but the "quintal" has a convoluted etymology: It becameLate Latin "centenarium pondus", then in succession, Late Greek, "kentenarion", Arabic, "qintar", Mediæval Latin, "quintale", and finallyOld French "quintal" before passing into theEnglish language . The word "centner", on the other hand, is just a Germanicized form of "centenarius".The unit was and still is used in the Arab world, where it is known as the "qintar". It is currently defined informally as 50 kg. The "qintar" was reimported to Europe by traders.
In France it used to be defined as 100 "livres" (pounds), about 48.95 kg, and has later been redefined as 100 kg ("
mesures usuelles "), thus called "metric quintal" with symbol "qq". InSpain it is still defined as 100 "libras", or about 46 kg, but the "metric quintal" is also defined as 100 kg [Real Academia Española 's [http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltGUIBusUsual?TIPO_HTML=2&TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=quintal definition of "quintal"] ] ; inPortugal a quintal is 128 "libras" or about 58.75 kg. In English both, "quintal" and "centner", were once alternate names for thehundredweight and thus defined either as 100 lb (exactly 45.359237 kg) or as 112 lb (about 50.84 kg). Also, inDominican Republic it is about 125 lb.In
India , the quintal is equivalent to 100 kg and is a standard measurement of mass for agricultural products.The quintal was defined in the United States in 1866 [ Act of July 28, 1866, codified in 15 U.S.C. §205 [http://fatty.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode15/usc_sec_15_00000205----000-notes.html] ] as 100 kilograms. However, this is not in use and though it still appears in the statute, it has been declared obsolete by
NIST . ["Metric System of Measurement: Interpretation of the International System of Units for the United States",Federal Register notice ofJuly 28 ,1998 , 63 F.R. 40333 [http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/200/202/SIFedReg.pdf] ]100 kilograms centner and "centner per
hectare " were also common units used inSoviet Union 's agriculture and are used now in ex-USSR states.References
ee also
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Zentner
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