Avoidance

A making void, useless, or empty. In Ecclesiastical Law. It exists when a benefice becomes vacant for want of an incumbent. In Pleading. Repelling or excluding the conclusions or implications arising from the admission of the truth of the allegations of the opposite party. See Confession ani> Avoioance. AVOIRDUPOIS (Fr.). The name of a system of weight. This kind of weight is so named in distinction from the Troy weight. One pound avoirdupois contains seven thousand grains Troy; that is, fourteen ounces, eleven pennyweights, and sixteen grains Troy; a pound avoirdupois contains sixteen ounces; and an ounce sixteen drachms. Thirty-two cubic feet of pure spring-water, at the temperature of fifty-six degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer, make a ton of two thousand pounds avoirdupois, or two thousand two hundred and forty pounds net weight.

Dane, Abr. c 211, art. 12, § 6.

The avoirdupois ounce is less than the Troy ounce in the proportion of 72 to 79; though the pound is greater.

Encyc. Senate, February 22, 1S21, pp.

44, 72, 76, 79, 81, 87, for a learned exposition of the whole subject.

See Weight.