picul

Etymology

From Malay pikul, with influence from earlier Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese pico.

noun

1. (units of measure) A traditional South and East Asian unit of weight, based upon the load of a shoulder pole and varying by place and over time but usually standardized at about 60 kg.
   Powder sugar of China, the hundred cattees or peecull worth fortie to fiftie. c. 1605, John Saris, quoted in Anthony Farrington's The English Factory in Japan (1991), p. 56
   The coal is sold for 130 cash... per picul of 133 pounds. 1888, Archibald John Little, Through the Yang-tse Gorges, page 279