Why does 16 ounces equals 1 pound?

Answer 1

"A pint's a pound,

the world around"

And only 16 ounces of water will work.

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Very helpful. Thank you. Go to your room.

The answer is: Because unfortunately, in our cockamamie "customary" system of units

that practically nobody in the word except the USA struggles with any more, there are

two different units with the same name!

The two different units are both called an "ounce". One is a unit of force, and 16 of

them make one pound of force. The other is unit of volume. There are 8 of them in

a cup, 16 of them in 1 pint, 32 of them in a quart, and 128 of them in a gallon. It can

be slightly less confusing and easier to tell the difference if this second one is called

a "fluid ounce"; if that's not done, it can throw you for a loop.

Where this mess came from: The connection was supposed to be water. A fluid

ounce of water was supposed to weigh an ounce of force, so if you were talking

water, then a pint would weigh a pound and everything would be beautiful. But

the weight of a fluid ounce of water isn't that close to one ounce, and even if it

were, there's no excuse for that kind of a sloppy attempt to make a force equal

to a volume. Just one more argument in favor of the metric system that Americans

are so afraid of.

Answer 2

Because a pound weight can be divided into 16 parts and a 1/16 part is called an ounce.

If you think this is a little cumbersome for a unit of measurement, most of the world agrees and they have adopted a metric measurement system where the units are counted in 10s not 16s.

Answer 3

That is the definition.