maund

• (UK) IPA^(key): /mɔːnd/
• Rhymes: -ɔːnd

From Middle English maunde, maundie, borrowed from Old French mande, borrowed from Middle Dutch mande, from Old Dutch *manda, from Proto-West Germanic *mandu.

• mand
• mande, mawn, mond (Scotland)

maund (plural maunds)

1. A wicker basket.
2. A unit of capacity with various specific local values.
3. (regional) A handbasket with two lids.

From Hindi मन (man) / Urdu من (man), and their source, Persian من, ultimately from Arabic [Term?]. The -d is probably from assimilation with Etymology 1 above, or from comparison with pound.

• mun, man

maund (plural maunds)

1. A unit of weight in south and west Asia, whose value varies widely by location.
   • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, “In Flood Time”, in In Black and White, Folio Society, published 2005, page 410:

     Now the rail has come, and the fire-carriage says buz-buz-buz, and a hundred lakhs of maunds slide across that big bridge.

   • 2023, Radhika Iyengar, Fire on the Ganges, Fourth Estate, page 146:

     One mann or maund is approximately 37.32 kilograms.

This spelling (maund) is usually used for the unit in British India, equal to 25 pounds avoirdupois at Madras, 28 pounds avoirdupois at Bombay and 10 troy pounds at Calcutta. For the equivalent unit in the Mughal Empire and in Persian- and Arabic-speaking countries, it is more usual to use the spelling mun or man (italicised to show that the word has not been assimilated into English).

Unclear, but possibly from French mendier or quémander (“to beg”). Compare Romani mang (“to beg”).

maund (uncountable)

1. (archaic) begging

maund (third-person singular simple present maunds, present participle maunding, simple past and past participle maunded)

1. (archaic) to beg
   • c. 1622, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger [et al.?], “Beggars Bvsh”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     You must hereafter maund on your own pads

2. (obsolete) To mutter; to mumble or speak incoherently; to maunder.

• Duman, Munda, dunam, mandu, undam, unmad