Catty

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Catty can also refer to Catasauqua, Pennsylvania.

Catty is the English word for a traditional Chinese unit of mass called a jīn (Chinese characters: 斤) in Mandarin Chinese (or gan in Cantonese, kin or kun in Minnan and kin in Japanese) used across East Asia. The English word catty originated from the Malay word kati. The kati is still used informally for weighing food and other groceries in some wet markets, street markets, and shops in East and Southeast Asian countries.

The catty is traditionally equivalent to around 1⅓ pounds avoirdupois, formalised as 604.78982 grammes in Hong Kong^[1], 604.79 grammes in Malaysia ^[2] and 604.8 grammes in Singapore ^[3]. In some countries, the weight has been rounded to 600 grammes (Taiwan and Thailand).

In mainland China, the catty has been rounded to 500 grammes and is referred to as the market catty (市斤 shijin) in order to distinguish it from the public catty (公斤 gongjin), or kilogram.

[edit] Related weights

A picul (Malay: pikul, Chinese: 擔 (Mandarin: dàn, Cantonese: tam)) is equal to 100 catties.

A tael (Malay: tahil, Chinese: 兩 (Mandarin: liăng, Cantonese leung, Minnan niu or nio•)) is the English term for 1/16 of a catty.

A stone (Chinese: 石 (Cantonese: shek)) is the English term for 120 catties.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Chinese units of measurement
• Taiwanese units of measurement
• Japanese units of measurement
• Caddy (disambiguation)
• Tea caddy

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