tonnage

Etymology

In its first sense, a duty on wine imported in tuns, it is borrowed from Old French tonnage (“duty levied on wine in casks”),^[2][3][4][5] recorded in Old French from 1300,^[2][3] beside Anglo-Norman tonage from 1260–70^[6] and Medieval Latin tonnāgium.^[2][5] The French noun is from tonne (“tun, cask”).^[2][4][7][8] In its later senses it is formed from English ton + -age,^[2][5][7][9] and Hoad notes that it was later associated directly with that word.^[4] Ton was at first the same word as tun, a large cask, which is from Old English tunne (“tun, cask, barrel”), a North Sea Germanic word also found as Old Frisian tunne, Middle Dutch tonne and Old High German tunna; it occurs too in Medieval Latin tunna (9th century) and in Old French, and perhaps in Celtic, but the relationship of these forms is uncertain.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tax formerly levied on wine imported in tuns or casks, at so much for every tun: 1422, in the Rolls of Parliament.^[2] Etymonline dates it to the early 15th century,^[3] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to the 15th century.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The wine duty was usually named together with poundage, as tonnage and poundage.^[2][10] Johnson (1755) defined the word as a custom on merchandise carried in tons, at a rate for every ton, and quoted Clarendon on the dispute over tonnage and poundage.^[10] From the 16th century the word followed ton as a unit of a ship's burden: a charge for hiring a ship at so much per ton (1512–87), then from 1617 a charge per ton on cargo or freight, at a port, a wharf or on a canal.^[2][4] The Oxford Dictionary of English dates the word itself to the early 17th century, in this sense.^[11] Ships taken together were called tonnage from 1633,^[2][3] and since 1718 the word meant the internal capacity of a ship, reckoned in tons of 100 cubic feet.^[2][3][4] Later it also meant weight in tons (1791), figuratively a person's mental capacity or bodily size (1807), and the weight of iron and other heavy goods on the market (1898).^[2] The verb meant to impose tonnage on from 1644, in Milton's Areopagitica, and since 1850 to have a tonnage of a given amount.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 1422 – a duty on wine imported in tuns.^[2]
• 1512 – a charge for hiring a ship, per ton of its burden (obsolete by 1587).^[2]
• 1617 – a charge per ton on cargo or freight.^[2]
• 1625 – in naval use, the cargo taken from a captured ship, or the reward paid for it.^[2]
• 1633 – ships collectively, shipping.^[2][3]
• 1644 – verb, to impose tonnage on.^[2]
• 1718 – the internal capacity of a ship in tons of 100 cubic feet.^[2][3]
• 1791 – weight in tons.^[2]
• 1807 – figurative, of mental capacity or bodily size.^[2]
• 1850 – verb, to have a tonnage of.^[2]
• 1898 – the weight of iron or other heavy goods on the market.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The carrying capacity of a merchant ship, expressed in tons of 100 cubic feet.^[8][7][2]
2. The weight of a ship's cargo.^[8]
3. Ships considered together by their total tons, as the shipping of a port or a nation: The country's merchant tonnage doubled in ten years.^[8][7][2]
4. A duty on ships based on their capacity, or a charge per ton on goods carried, as on a canal.^[8][7][2]
5. (historical) A duty formerly levied on every tun of wine imported, usually paired with poundage.^[7][2][5]

Verb

1. To have a tonnage of a given amount.^[2][5]
2. (rare) To impose tonnage on.^[2][5]

Word family

• megatonnage

Related words

• ton
• tun
• tonne

Usage notes

The spelling tunnage is also found, less commonly.^[7][8]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press