short ton
unit of weight
Quick Summary
A short ton is a unit of weight equal to 2,000 pounds. This is also known as the U.S. ton.12
In contrast, a long ton is a unit of weight equal to 2,240 pounds. This is the British standard. The metric ton, used in most other countries, is 1,000 kilograms, which is approximately 2,204.6 pounds. The term "ton" originally referred to a large barrel and later came to mean any large weight, eventually being standardized at 20 hundredweight, with variations in the total weight depending on the number of pounds in a hundredweight.32
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