From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtonton /tʌn/ ●●○ S3 noun [countable] 1 (plural tons or ton) (written abbreviation t)TM a unit for measuring weight, equal to 2,240 pounds or 1,016 kilograms in Britain, and 2,000 pounds or 907.2 kilograms in the US → tonne2 → tons of something3 → weigh a ton4 → come down on somebody like a ton of bricks5 → hit somebody like a ton of bricks
Examples from the Corpus
ton• The station also supplied the nearby brickworks with its coal, 23,000 tons in 1898, chiefly from Yorkshire.• He was welding on top of a 900 ton oil storage tank which exploded, hurling him 120 feet into a wall.• She would get some Dublin Bay prawns and tons of garlic, if he could bring some great wine or other?• About a million tons of lava are pouring every day from the fissure which opened on the Sicilian volcano in December.• Doesn't he care that nuclear energy has so far saved the world from burning five hundred million tons of coal?• The payload of the military 109 is one ton, the civilian 109 is ¾ ton.• From the ton of stuff littering the area, this was clearly a campsite.• Two vats were in use, with maximum production in the region of three tons per week.From Longman Business Dictionarytonton /tʌn/ noun (plural tons or ton) [countable]1a unit for measuring weight, equal to 2,240 pounds or 1,016 kilograms in Britain, and 2,000 pounds or 907.2 kilograms in the USThe quarry produces about 6,000 tons per annum.a price of $150 a ton → compare tonne2informal used when talking about money to mean a ‘hundred’, for example £100 or $100 millionOrigin ton (1200-1300) tun “container, unit of weight” ((11-21 centuries)), from Old English tunne 