Brewer's: Pound

The unit of weight (Latin, pondus, weight); also cash to the value of twenty shillings sterling, because in the Carlovingian period the Roman pound (twelve ounces) of pure silver was coined into 240 silver pennies. The symbols and lb. are for libra, the Latin for a pound. (See Penny for Pound.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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