Meanings
quintal1
plural quintals
- historicalSynonym of hundredweight, 100 or 112 English or American pounds.
In one import license alone, the merchant in question was instructed to bring in 13,000 quintals of alum, which, snapped up by industries in England and the Low Countries, would yield the king a cool £8,666 13s 4d.
2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 204Synonyms: hundredweight, 100 or 112 English or American pounds
- An unofficial metric unit equal to 100 kg.
quintal2
plural quintals
- grammarA grammatical number referring to five (or more) things.
In UgSL, we find a complete set of forms for dual, trial, quadral and quintal in several paradigmatic contrasts.
2014, Sam Lutalo-Kiingi, A Descriptive Grammar of Morphosyntactic Constructions in Ugandan Sign Language (UgSL), page 1982 more examples
Furthermore, if the number-incorporated pronouns are analyzed as grammatically marked for number, distinct grammatical categories for trial, quadral and quintal must be posited.
2002, Kearsy Annette Cormier, Grammaticization of Indexic Signs: How American Sign Language Expresses Numerosity, page 69All in all, this suggests that in LSC the differences observed in the motion taken by exact number pronouns is not grounded in a fundamental distinction between the dual vs. the trial, the quadral and the quintal.
2023, Raquel Veiga Busto, Person and Number: An Empirical Study of Catalan Sign Language Pronouns, page 164
- not comparablegrammarReferring to five (or more) things; of, in or relating to the quintal grammatical number.
In sign languages, on the other hand, trial, quadral and quintal forms such as found in UgSL are not uncommon.
2014, Sam Lutalo-Kiingi, A Descriptive Grammar of Morphosyntactic Constructions in Ugandan Sign Language (UgSL), page 1982 more examples
What Table 4 does not show is the possibility of even "quadral" and "quintal" forms, like yufopela 'you four', 'the four of you', yufaipela 'you five', 'the five of you'.
1995, John W. M. Verhaar, Toward a Reference Grammar of Tok Pisin: An Experiment in Corpus Linguistics, page 20Moreover, trial, quadral and quintal forms are given an identical status as number values in the pronominal domain.
2023, Raquel Veiga Busto, Person and Number: An Empirical Study of Catalan Sign Language Pronouns, page 102
Quintal3
Synonyms & antonyms
nounSynonym of hundredweight, 100 or 112 English or American pounds.
More synonyms by meaning
nouna United States unit of weight equivalent to 100 pounds
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
quintal · noun
- Portuguesequintal
- Spanishquintal
- Frenchquintal
- Latincentēnārium“100 Roman pounds”
- Medieval Greekκεντηνάριον
- Classical Syriacܩܰܢܛܺܝܪܳܐ
- Arabicقِنْطَار“100 rottols”
- Medieval Latinquintale
- Middle Frenchquintal
- Anglo-Normanquintal
- Englishquintal
Late Middle English, from Anglo-Norman quintal, from Middle French quintal, from Old French and Medieval Latin quintale and quintallus (“various medieval hundredweights”), from Arabic قِنْطَار (qinṭār, “100 rottols”), from Classical Syriac ܩܰܢܛܺܝܪܳܐ (qanṭīrā) and ܩܰܢܛܺܝܢܳܪܳܐ (qanṭīnārā), from Medieval Greek κεντηνάριον (kentēnárion), from Latin centēnārium (“100 Roman pounds”), from the neuter of centēnārius (“having 100 things”). Use for various non-English units, borrowed from French quintal, Spanish quintal, Portuguese quintal, etc. The apparent relation to quint- (“five, fivefold”) and -al (forming adjectives) is accidental, although it possibly influenced the eventual spelling of the term. Doublet of centenary, centner, and kantar.
More words from Anglo-Norman, Middle French, Medieval Latin
Full word history & related roots →quintal · noun, adjective
From quint- (“five, fivefold”) + -al (forming adjectives).
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Basque kintal
- kintalmetric quintal of 100 kg
Bengali কুইন্টাল
- কুইন্টাল (kuinṭal)metric quintal of 100 kg
Bulgarian центнер
- центнер (centner)metric quintal of 100 kg
Catalan quintar
- quintarmetric quintal of 100 kg
Finnish sentaali
- sentaalimetric quintal of 100 kg
French quintal
- quintalmetric quintal of 100 kg
German Quintal, Doppelzentner
- Quintalmetric quintal of 100 kg
- Doppelzentnermetric quintal of 100 kg
- Zentnermetric quintal of 100 kg
- Dezitonnemetric quintal of 100 kg
Hindi क्विंटल, कुंटल
- क्विंटल (kviṇṭal)metric quintal of 100 kg
- कुंटल (kuṇṭal)metric quintal of 100 kg
- कुंतल (kuntal)metric quintal of 100 kg
Hungarian mázsa
- mázsametric quintal of 100 kg
Italian quintale
- quintalemetric quintal of 100 kg
Portuguese quintal
- quintalmetric quintal of 100 kg
Romanian chintal
- chintalmetric quintal of 100 kg
Russian це́нтнер
- це́нтнер (céntner)metric quintal of 100 kg
Spanish quintal métrico, quintal
- quintal métricometric quintal of 100 kg
- quintalmetric quintal of 100 kg
Turkish kental
- kentalmetric quintal of 100 kg
Cite this entry
quintal. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/quintal
“quintal.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/quintal. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “quintal,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/quintal.
Source: quintal on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.