Adjacent Words

Tonnage definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

TON'NAGE, n. [from ton, a corrupt orthography. See Tun.]
1. The weight of goods carried in a boat or ship.
2. The cubical content or burthen of a ship in tuns; or the amount of weight which she may carry.
3. A duty or impost on ships, estimated per tun; or a duty, toll or rate payable on goods per tun, transported on canals.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a tax imposed on ships that enter the US; based on the tonnage of the ship [syn: tonnage, tunnage, tonnage duty]

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: in sense 1, from Middle English, from Anglo-French, from tonne tun; in other senses, from ¹ton — more at tunnel Date: 15th century 1. a duty formerly levied on every tun of wine imported into England 2. a. a duty or impost on vessels based on cargo capacity b. a duty on goods per ton transported 3. ships in terms of the total number of tons registered or carried or of their carrying capacity 4. a. the cubical content of a merchant ship in units of 100 cubic feet b. the displacement of a warship 5. a. total weight in tons shipped, carried, or produced b. impressively large amount or weight

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 a ship's internal cubic capacity or freight-carrying capacity measured in tons. 2 the total carrying capacity esp. of a country's mercantile marine. 3 a charge per ton on freight or cargo. Etymology: orig. in sense 'duty on a tun of wine': OF tonnage f. tonne TUN: later f. TON(1)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Tonnage Ton"nage (?; 48), n. [From Ton a measure.] 1. The weight of goods carried in a boat or a ship. 2. The cubical content or burden of a vessel, or vessels, in tons; or, the amount of weight which one or several vessels may carry. See Ton, n. (b) . A fleet . . . with an aggregate tonnage of 60,000 seemed sufficient to conquer the world. --Motley. 3. A duty or impost on vessels, estimated per ton, or, a duty, toll, or rate payable on goods per ton transported on canals. 4. The whole amount of shipping estimated by tons; as, the tonnage of the United States. See Ton. Note: There are in common use the following terms relating to tonnage: (a) Displacement. (b) Register tonnage, gross and net. (c) Freight tonnage. (d) Builders' measurement. (e) Yacht measurement. The first is mainly used for war vessels, where the total weight is likely to be nearly constant. The second is the most important, being that used for commercial purposes. The third and fourth are different rules for ascertaining the actual burden-carrying power of a vessel, and the fifth is for the proper classification of pleasure craft. Gross tonnage expresses the total cubical interior of a vessel; net tonnage, the cubical space actually available for freight-carrying purposes. Rules for ascertaining these measurements are established by law.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(tonnages) 1. The tonnage of a ship is its size or the amount of space that it has inside it for cargo. (TECHNICAL) N-VAR 2. Tonnage is the total number of tons that something weighs, or the total amount that there is of it. N-VAR

Moby Thesaurus

accommodation, argosy, avoirdupois, beef, beefiness, bottoms, burden, capacity, carriage, cartage, content, cordage, deadweight, drayage, expressage, fatness, fleet, flotilla, freight, freightage, gravity, gross weight, haulage, heaviness, heft, heftiness, limit, line, liveweight, measure, merchant fleet, merchant navy, navy, neat weight, net, net weight, overbalance, overweight, ponderability, ponderosity, ponderousness, poundage, quantity, room, shipping, ships, space, stowage, underweight, volume, weight, weightiness, whaling fleet