Word.ws English Dictionary

ton of refrigeration

ton of refrigeration noun: a unit of power chiefly applied to the cooling capacity of a refrigerator, freezer, or air conditioner, equal to 12,000 British thermal units (Btu) per hour (200 Btu per minute); it denotes the amount of heat required to melt one short ton of ice in 24 hours.

Noun

ton of refrigeration (plural tons of refrigeration)

  1. (US) A unit of power chiefly applied to the cooling capacity of a refrigerator, freezer, or air conditioner, equal to 12,000 British thermal units (Btu) per hour (200 Btu per minute); it denotes the amount of heat required to melt one short ton of ice in 24 hours.
    • The short crop of ice, owing to the phenomenally mild winter, has given quite an impetus to the manufacture of ice making machines and mechanical refrigerators. These machines have attained great perfection within the last ten years, and are extensively used by hotels, breweries, abattoirs, packing...1890 August 2, “Making ice and refrigerating by machinery [reprinted in The Engineer courtesy of Progressive Age]”, in The Engineer, volume 20, number 3, page 34
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see ton, of, refrigeration.

Synonyms of ton of refrigeration

Forms of ton of refrigeration

pluraltons of refrigeration

Origin of ton of refrigeration

Since the 1880s, as explained in Wikipedia at ton of refrigeration § History.

Questions about ton of refrigeration

What does ton of refrigeration mean?
Ton of refrigeration means a unit of power chiefly applied to the cooling capacity of a refrigerator, freezer, or air conditioner, equal to 12,000 British thermal units (Btu) per hour (200 Btu per minute); it denotes the amount of heat required to melt one short ton of ice in 24 hours.
What part of speech is ton of refrigeration?
Ton of refrigeration is a noun.
What is the plural of ton of refrigeration?
The plural of ton of refrigeration is tons of refrigeration.

Words near ton of refrigeration in the dictionary

  1. ton
  2. ton mile
  3. ton mileage
  4. ton mileages
  5. ton miles
  6. ton of refrigeration
  7. ton of TNT
  8. Ton Pentre
  9. ton-mile
  10. ton-miles
  11. ton-up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ton of refrigeration (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “ton of refrigeration.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ton_of_refrigeration. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.