Editing Quintal (section)

{{short description|Historical unit of mass (hundredweight variant)}}
{{other uses}}
{{use dmy dates|date=October 2024}}
{{more citations needed|date=July 2017}}
The '''quintal''' or '''centner''' is a historical unit of [[mass]] in many countries that is usually defined as 100 base units, such as [[pound (mass)|pound]]s or [[kilogram]]s.<ref name="Rowlett">{{cite web |last1=Rowlett |first1=Russ |url=http://www.ibiblio.org/units/dictQ.html#quintal |title=How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measurement |website=ibiblio |publisher=University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |access-date=25 March 2020 |date=2018 }}</ref> It is a traditional unit of weight in France, Portugal, and Spain and their former colonies. It is commonly used for [[grain]] prices in wholesale markets in Ethiopia, Eritrea and India, where 1 quintal = {{convert|100|kg|lb|0|abbr=on}}.<ref>{{cite book|title=Quintal - Merriam Webster Dictionary|publisher=Merriam Webster Dictionary|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quintal|access-date=20 June 2017}}</ref>

In [[British English]], it referred to the [[hundredweight]]; in [[American English]], it formerly referred to an [[Metric Act of 1866#Metric Weights and Measures|uncommon measurement]] of {{convert|100|kg|lb|0|abbr=on}}. 
{{anchor|Etymology}}

Languages drawing its cognate name for the weight from [[Romance languages]] include French, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish {{lang|fr|quintal}}, Italian {{lang|it|quintale}}, Esperanto {{lang|eo|kvintalo}}, Polish {{lang|pl|kwintal}}. Languages taking their cognates from Germanicized ''centner'' include the German {{lang|de|[[Zentner]]}}, Lithuanian {{lang|lt|centneris}}, Swedish {{lang|sv|centner}}, Polish {{lang|pl|cetnar}}, Russian and Ukrainian {{lang|ru|центнер}} ({{lang|uk-Latn|tsentner}}) and Estonian {{lang|et|tsentner}}.

Many European languages have come to translate both the [[imperial units|British]] [[hundredweight]] (8 stone or {{convert|112|lb|kg|2|disp=sqbr}}) and the [[US customary units|American]] [[hundredweight]] ({{convert|100|lb|kg|2|disp=sqbr}}), as their cognate form of ''quintal'' or ''centner''.