市两 (shìliǎng): Chinese unit of weight equal to…

Meanings

1 Chinese unit of weight equal to 50 grams
2 tael (market system)

Characters

市

shì

market (standardized)

两

liǎng

tael / Chinese ounce

Examples

这块肉有四市两。

Zhè kuài ròu yǒu sì shìliǎng.

This piece of meat is four taels (200 g).

老药方上写着三市两当归。

Lǎo yàofāng shàng xiězhe sān shìliǎng dāngguī.

The old prescription calls for three taels of dong quai.

Tips

culture

市 (shì, 'market') prefixed onto traditional units to mark the standardized PRC market system fixed in 1959: 1 市斤 (shìjīn) = 500 g, 1 市两 (shìliǎng) = 50 g, 1 市尺 (shìchǐ) = 1/3 m. Distinguishes from imperial 库两 (kùliǎng, ~37 g) used in pre-modern texts.

usage

In daily speech 两 alone is enough — 市 only appears when a writer wants to disambiguate from old-Chinese or metric units, e.g. recipes, herbal medicine, historical documents.