tonne
UK/tʌn//tʌn/
tonne noun: a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms.
Noun
tonne (plural tonnes)
- A unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms.
- Although loads of up to 900 tonnes could be handled by one of these locomotives, in practice the load is limited to 790 tonnes by drawgear.1961 February, “Letters to the Editor: Swiss railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 126
- The metric ton or 'tonne' is accepted as a synonym for the megagramme, and this form Is to be preferred on the grounds of brevity and familiarity in the industry. It may be as well to use the pronunciation 'tunnie' until the risk of confusion with the old ton has passed.1971, Transactions of the Royal Institute of Naval Arcihtects, volume 113, page 215
- Synonyms:
- metric ton, metric tonne, megagram
Proper noun capitalized: Tonne
Tonne (plural Tonnes)
- A surname from German.
tonne meaning in Malayalam
tonne in Malayalam
- tonne
- ടൺ ṭaṇ
Examples of tonne in a sentence
- The British Steel Corporation, going metric but realising the possible confusion between a ton and a tonne (1,000 kilograms) has directed its staff to pronounce ‘tonne’ ‘tunnie’.1972 May, Which:
- The tonne rhymes with con (perhaps not in North America!) to distinguish it from the non-SI unit of weight, the ton rhyming with bun.2002, Richard Chapman, Physics for Geologists, CRC Press, published 2002, →ISBN, page 138:
Synonyms of tonne
Forms of tonne
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | tonnes |
| alternative abbreviation | t |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Tonnes |
Origin of tonne
From French tonne. Doublet of ton and tun.
Borrowed from German Tonne.
Words formed from tonne
Phrases with tonne
Words that rhyme with tonne
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- rerun
- stun
- nun
- shun
- 'un
- Gunn
- jump the gun
- none
- outrun
- overdone
- begun
- dun
- fun
- hon
- pun
- speedrun
- thon
- undone
- unspun
- verdun
- winter sun
- 1
- 101
- 26+6=1
- cun
- dun dun dun
- everyone
- hard-won
- have one's mind about one
- hot cross bun
- marble run
- misdone
- mun
- Munn
- old one
- one hundred and one
- one thousand and one
- organ gun
- outdone
- outgun
- over and done
- quaker gun
- redone
- respun
- rewon
- snatch and run
- spun
- steam gun
Questions about tonne
- What does tonne mean?
- Tonne means a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms.
- What is tonne in Malayalam?
- Tonne in Malayalam is ടൺ (ṭaṇ). See Tonne meaning in Malayalam.
- How do you use tonne in a sentence?
- The British Steel Corporation, going metric but realising the possible confusion between a ton and a tonne (1,000 kilograms) has directed its staff to pronounce ‘tonne’ ‘tunnie’.
- What part of speech is tonne?
- Tonne can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce tonne?
- Tonne is pronounced /tʌn/ (UK).
- What is the plural of tonne?
- The plural of tonne is tonnes.
Words near tonne in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tonne (page history and authors); Tonne (page history and authors); ടൺ (Malayalam) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-tonne.ogg.
Cite this entry: “tonne.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tonne. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.