Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CENT'NER, n. [L. centum, centinarius.]

In metallurgy and assaying, a docimastic hundred; a weight divisible first into a hundred parts, and then into smaller parts. The metallurgists use a weight divided into a hundred equal parts, each one pound; the whole they call a centner: the pound is divided into thirty-two parts or half ounces; the half ounce into two quarters, and each of these into two drams. But the assayers use different weights. With them a centner is one dram, to which the other parts are proportioned. – Encyc.