Ounces to Pounds Converter

An ounce is exactly 28.349523125 grams and one sixteenth of a pound, so sixteen ounces make one pound. That definition makes it the avoirdupois ounce, the unit used for ordinary trade.

Ounces appear on postal and courier weight bands, on food packaging and recipe cards, and in the jewellery trade, though precious metals are quoted in the troy ounce.

The gram and kilogram factors are exact decimal relations, and the imperial factors are exact by definition. Display rounding can still change the last digit on a round trip.

The usual error is confusing the troy ounce with the avoirdupois ounce: the troy ounce is 31.1035 grams, while the avoirdupois ounce is 28.349523125 grams. Ounces suit small parcels and portions, not bulk freight.

Ounces are most often confused with grams in recipes and postal weights, because the factor is 28.349523125 rather than a simple power of ten. Precious metals are quoted in the troy ounce, which is not the same as this ounce.

A pound is exactly 0.45359237 kilograms, or 453.59237 grams, and it contains sixteen ounces of 28.349523125 grams each. This is the avoirdupois pound used for general goods.

Pounds are the everyday weight unit in the United States, and they remain common for body weight, packaged food, courier parcels and freight wherever imperial measures are still used.

The pound to kilogram factor is exact by definition, and metric mass units relate to one another by exact decimal shifts. Display rounding means a round trip can end one digit away.

A stone figure is often mistaken for a pound on body-weight charts; one stone is 14 pounds, so 11 stone is 154 pounds. Pounds suit small and medium weights, while tonnes suit freight.

The sibling most easily mistaken for a pound is the kilogram, since both describe body weight and produce. Stones give a smaller number still, so a value quoted without its unit cannot be judged.