Definition
An abbreviation for hundredweight, a unit of weight used in commercial and trade contexts. In legal and commercial usage, CWT equals one hundred and twelve pounds (112 lbs.), not one hundred pounds. This distinction — the difference between the long hundredweight of 112 lbs. and the short hundredweight of 100 lbs. — is the operative legal point wherever the abbreviation appears in contracts, commodity sales, shipping agreements, and trade documents.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Alternative spelling of cwt, meaning hundredweight.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately defined; cwt was understood as the standard abbreviation for hundredweight.
The gap between common and legal meaning here is not about the word itself but about the quantity it represents. In ordinary modern American usage, "hundredweight" is frequently assumed to mean 100 pounds — the short hundredweight standard that became dominant in U.S. domestic trade. Legal and historical commercial sources, however, fix CWT at 112 pounds, the long hundredweight inherited from British commercial practice. A researcher encountering CWT in a nineteenth-century contract should not assume 100 lbs. without verification.
Common Confusion
CWT (112 lbs.) versus the short hundredweight (100 lbs.): These are two distinct units sharing a name and abbreviation. The short hundredweight (100 lbs.) is standard in contemporary U.S. agricultural and commodity markets. The long hundredweight (112 lbs.) was standard in British-origin commercial law and carried forward in American legal usage through much of the nineteenth century. Confusing the two in a dispute over commodity pricing, freight charges, or contract performance could produce a material difference in the quantity owed or delivered. The historical dictionaries are explicit: CWT is 112 lbs., not the twentieth part of a ton (which would be 100 lbs. if the ton is 2,000 lbs., or 112 lbs. if the ton is 2,240 lbs. — another related ambiguity in historical sources).
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research trap is anachronism. Modern researchers accustomed to the U.S. short hundredweight (100 lbs.) may misread quantities in historical contracts, freight bills, insurance documents, and commodity sale records. The legal dictionaries anchor CWT at 112 lbs., and this carries significant consequences in disputes over purchase price, freight rate calculations, and delivery obligations where CWT appears as the pricing unit.
Bouvier's entry adds a clarifying negative — CWT designates not the twentieth of a ton — which signals that this confusion was live in nineteenth-century practice. The reference to a ton in that context is almost certainly the long ton of 2,240 lbs. (20 × 112 = 2,240), confirming that the legal hundredweight was tethered to the British commercial weight system, not the later American short-ton system.
Researchers working with commodity contracts, maritime freight, or agricultural sale agreements should flag every instance of CWT and confirm the governing weight standard from the document's date, jurisdiction, and trade context. Post-nineteenth-century American commercial documents are more likely to use the short hundredweight, but the transition was uneven across industries and regions.
The abbreviation also appears in tax and customs records, where the applicable statutory or regulatory definition of hundredweight controls. Do not import the legal-dictionary standard mechanically into statutory or regulatory documents without checking the operative definition in the governing text.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree: CWT equals 112 pounds. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's converge on this definition without qualification. Bouvier's adds the useful negative formulation — not the twentieth of a ton — which functions as a caution against a competing interpretation rather than an independent definition.
The shared citation to Helm v. Bryant, 11 B. Mon. (Ky.) 64, across Black's first and second editions, grounds the definition in Kentucky case law from the mid-nineteenth century. This is consistent with British commercial weight standards prevailing in American legal usage at that period. None of the three sources acknowledge the short hundredweight or note any divergence in American practice, which reflects their historical moment: the short hundredweight had not yet displaced the long hundredweight in formal legal usage when these dictionaries were written.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the transition in U.S. commercial practice toward the 100 lb. short hundredweight, the treatment of CWT in federal commodity regulations, and any statutory redefinitions. Researchers should treat the 112 lb. standard as the default for historical legal documents and verify the applicable standard for modern or regulatory contexts.
Jurisdictional Note
U.S. federal commodity and agricultural regulations have in many contexts standardized hundredweight at 100 lbs. for domestic markets. The 112 lb. long hundredweight remains the reference standard in historical legal sources and British-origin commercial law. Researchers working across jurisdictions or time periods should not assume uniformity.