Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • abbreviation ounce

from The Century Dictionary.

  • An abbreviation of ounce.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • abbreviation Ounce; any of various units of weight and volume.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a unit of weight equal to one sixteenth of a pound or 16 drams or 28.349 grams

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Italian oz., abbreviation of onza.

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Examples

Comments

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  • This may be apocryphal, but I read once that Mr Baum came up with "Oz" as he was improvising the stories for his children. He was trying to think of a name for this magical land when his eyes landed on a two-drawer filing cabinet: A–N and O–Z.

    April 6, 2008

  • Was s4pp6sed t6 0ean 64nce fr60 what *ve heard.

    April 7, 2008

  • "Henry Littlefield does not offer any explanation of the name Oz in his analysis of the parallels between the Populist movement and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In his 1971 book The Winning of the Midwest, Richard Jensen points out that oz. is the abbreviation of ounce, which is the standard unit of measure of silver and gold. At the time The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published, the United States was on the gold standard. The Populists argued for 'bi-metallism,' a monetary standard using both gold and silver. L. Frank Baum used color in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, particularly the colors of money. The Emerald City was green (or was made to appear green, anyway), the yellow brick road was gold and in his original story Dorothy's shoes were silver rather than ruby. Perhaps the choice of the name Oz reinforces the notion that Baum intentionally wrote a political/monetary allegory.

    When asked about the origin of the name Oz, Baum was quoted as saying, 'I have a little cabinet letter file on my desk that is just in front of me. I was thinking and wondering about a title for the story, and had settled on the Wizard as part of it. My gaze was caught by the gilt letters on the three drawers of the cabinet. The first was A-G; the next drawer was labeled H-N; and on the last were the letters O-Z. And 'Oz' it at once became.'"

    - The Symbolism of Oz Characters and Images

    April 7, 2008

  • Australia?

    May 22, 2008

    1. Australia/Australian
    2. unit of weight
      • Troy (31.1034768 grams) named from the city of Troyes in the Champagne area of France,
      • Avoirdupois (28.349523125 grams)
      • Other
    3. The Snow Leopard (Uncia uncia)

    July 16, 2008

  • We're off to see the Wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

    You'll find he is a whiz of a Wiz! If ever a Wiz! there was.

    If ever oh ever a Wiz! there was The Wizard of Oz is one becoz,

    Becoz, becoz, becoz, becoz, becoz.

    Becoz of the wonderful things he does.

    -Harold Arlen

    July 16, 2008

  • let's not forget "TV series involving considerable amounts of full-frontal male nudity and a hefty dollop of homosexual rape scenes"

    July 16, 2008

  • "1. An abbreviation of ounce. The second letter here, while identical in form with the letter z, is really the character used by early printers for the arbitrary mark of terminal contraction, ȝ which is common in medieval manuscripts. It occurs also in viz." --Cent. Dict.

    September 21, 2011

  • I demand genuine arbitrariness in my arbitrary mark of terminal contraction, ru^!

    September 22, 2011

  • “. . . If ever a vis there was, &c.

                                    — Harry Arȝ

    September 22, 2011

  • Bilby, you can use the terminal contractions of your choice in the wonderful land of Oz--just be careful not to click your heels together three times (you might end up in Kansas).

    September 22, 2011

  • I know a photographer in Italia called Roberto Settonce. His surname looks like it could be - of course it's not - a contraction of sette seven and once ounces. He watermarks all his photographs 7oz.

    September 22, 2011