Etymology From Middle English maunde, maundie, borrowed from Old French mande, borrowed from Middle Dutch mande, from Old Dutch *manda, from Proto-West Germanic *mandu.
1
A wicker basket.
2
A unit of capacity with various specific local values.
He maunds Abram, he begs as a madde man.c. 1608–1610, Samuel Rid, Martin Mark-all, Beadle of Bridewell:
You must hereafter maund on your own padsc. 1622, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger [et al.?], “Beggars Bush”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
2
Obsolete To mutter; to mumble or speak incoherently; to maunder.
maund
noun
Etymology From Hindi मन (man) / Urdu من (man), and their source, Persian من, from Middle Persian, from Akkadian 𒈠𒉡𒌑 (manû). The -d is probably from assimilation with Etymology 1 above, or from comparison with pound.
1
A unit of weight in south and west Asia, whose value varies widely by location.
Now the rail has come, and the fire-carriage says buz-buz-buz, and a hundred lakhs of maunds slide across that big bridge.1888, Rudyard Kipling, “In Flood Time”, in In Black and White, Folio Society, published 2005, page 410:
One mann or maund is approximately 37.32 kilograms.2023, Radhika Iyengar, Fire on the Ganges, Fourth Estate, page 146:
maund
noun
Etymology Unclear, but possibly from French mendier or quémander (“to beg”). Compare Romani mang (“to beg”).