picul

English

Alternative forms

• pical, pikal, pikol, pikul
• pico, picol, 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)

1. (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, page 279:

     The coal is sold for 130 cash... per picul of 133 pounds.

Synonyms

• pingo (Sri Lanka, dated)
• dan (Chinese); tam, tan (Cantonese)

Translations

Translations

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 擔／担 (zh) (dàn)

• Japanese: ピクル
• Tày: bồ
• Vietnamese: tạ (vi)

References

• “picul, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2006.