ton

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A unit of weight equal to 2,000 pounds (0.907 metric ton or 907.18 kilograms). Also called net ton, short ton.
2. n. A unit of weight equal to 2,240 pounds (1.016 metric tons or 1,016.05 kilograms). Also called long ton.
3. n. A metric ton. See Table at measurement.
4. n. A unit of capacity for cargo in maritime shipping, normally estimated at 40 cubic feet.
5. n. A unit of internal capacity of a ship equal to 100 cubic feet.
6. n. A unit for measuring the displacement of ships, equal to 35 cubic feet, and supposed to equal the volume taken by a long ton of seawater.
7. n. Informal A large extent, amount, or number. Often used in the plural: has a ton of work; gets tons of fan mail.
8. n. Informal Used adverbially with a or in the plural to mean "to a great degree or extent” or "frequently”: felt a ton better; has seen her tons lately.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A cask; hence, a measure of capacity used for wine. See tun, 1.
2. n. A measure of capacity: used
3. n. for timber. 40 feet of oak or ash timber, sometimes 48 or 50 feet of hewn
4. n. for flour, 8 sacks or 10 barrels
5. n. for potatoes, 10 to 36 bushels
6. n. for wheat, 20 bushels
7. n. for earth or gravel, 1 cubie yard, sometimes 23 cubic feet
8. n. for grindstones, 15 cubic feet
9. n. for Portland stone, 16 cubic feet
10. n. for salt, 42 bushels
11. n. for lime, 40 bushels
12. n. for coke, 28 bushels
13. n. for the carrying capacity of a ship, 40 cubic feet (this is what is called the actual tonnage: See tonnage).
14. n. A measure of weight, equal to 20 hundred-weight or 2,240 pounds avoirdupois (the long ton), or in the United States to 2,000 pounds (the short ton).
15. n. The prevailing mode; high fashion; style; air of fashion. See bon-ton.
16. See tone.
17. n. A Middle English plural of toe.
18. n. A form of -town, being the word town used in place-names, as Ashton, Hampton, Wolverton, Merton.

Wiktionary

1. n. A unit of weight (mass) equal to 2240 pounds (a long ton) or 2000 pounds (a short ton) or 1000 kilograms (a metric ton).
2. n. A unit of volume; register ton.
3. n. In refrigeration and air conditioning, a unit of thermal power defined as 12,000 BTU/h (about 3.514 kW or 3024 kcal/h), originally the rate of cooling provided by uniform isothermal melting of one short ton of ice per day at 32 °F (0 °C).
4. n. colloquial, hyperbolic A large amount.
5. n. slang A speed of 100 mph.
6. n. slang One hundred pounds sterling.
7. n. cricket One hundred runs.
8. n. darts One hundred points.
9. n. Fashion, the current style, the vogue.
10. n. Fashionable society; those in style.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. pl. of toe.
2. n. (Zoöl.) The common tunny, or horse mackerel.
3. n. The prevailing fashion or mode; vogue.
4. n. (Com.) A measure of weight or quantity.
5. n. The weight of twenty hundredweight.
6. n. (Naut. & Com.) Forty cubic feet of space, being the unit of measurement of the burden, or carrying capacity, of a vessel; as a vessel of 300 tons burden.
7. n. (Naut. & Com.) A certain weight or quantity of merchandise, with reference to transportation as freight; as, six hundred weight of ship bread in casks, seven hundred weight in bags, eight hundred weight in bulk; ten bushels of potatoes; eight sacks, or ten barrels, of flour; forty cubic feet of rough, or fifty cubic feet of hewn, timber, etc.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a British unit of weight equivalent to 2240 pounds
2. n. a United States unit of weight equivalent to 2000 pounds