Dictionary

wey en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• wā
• /weɪ/

Etymology

From Middle English weie, waie, weihe, wæȝe, from Old English wǣġ (“a weight; a tool for weighing, balance, scale”), from Proto-West Germanic *wāgu, from Proto-Germanic *wēgō (“scales; weight”), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to move, bring, transport”). Cognate with German Waage (“weight”), Icelandic vág (“a weight”).

Meanings

1. (archaic, uncommon) An old English measure of weight containing 224 pounds; equivalent to 2 hundredweight.
   • Than though I hadde this wouke ywonne a weye of Essex cheese. c. 1376, William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman, Version B, Passus 5, Line 91
   • WEY, WEIGH, an English measure of weight; for wool, equal to 6½ tods of 28 lbs.; a load or five quarters of wheat; 40 bushels of salt, each 56 lbs.; 32 cloves of cheese, each 7 lbs.; 48 bushels of oats and barley; 2 to 3 cwt. of butter. 1858, Peter Lund Simmonds, The Dictionary of Trade Products, Manufacturing, and Technical Terms, page 410:
   • Seven pounds make a clove, 2 cloves a stone, 2 stone a tod, 6½ tods a wey, 2 weys a sack, 12 sacks a last. […] It is to be observed here that a sack is 13 tods, and a tod 28 pounds, so that the sack is 364 pounds. 1843, The Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, volume 27, page 202:
   • Cheese and salt are purchased by the wey of two hundredweight, or by the stone of fourteen pounds. 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 4, page 208:

Forms