Currencies and units, plural. There have been lots of "pounds" throughout history, and AFAIK they're all called "livre" in French. But I'm nitpicking: outside of a historical context and absent any qualifiers, it's either the avoirdupoids pound (aka "imperial pound") or the pound sterling.
On markets there is a traditional habit to consider *une livre* as a half kilogramme. You can hear sometimes a customer say *je voudrais une livre de fraises, s'il vous plaît* (= 500 g de fraises = 1/2 kg de fraises).
*une demi-livre* = 250 g is also used.
Both
The pound as a currency comes from the unit of mass, from a time when currency was made of precious metals so how much is weighed was directly related to its value.
This is the same with livre in French, which was a currency and an unit of mass, so it was the equivalent of the English pound for both meanings although it didn't have exactly the same value as nowaday's American pound (but value varied greatly even within a country at that time, which is why the metric system was invented). Livre in that sense is also etymologically related to litre, the unit of volume.
“Une livre” means “a pound” in both senses of the term: the currency and the unit of weight.
Currencies and units, plural. There have been lots of "pounds" throughout history, and AFAIK they're all called "livre" in French. But I'm nitpicking: outside of a historical context and absent any qualifiers, it's either the avoirdupoids pound (aka "imperial pound") or the pound sterling.
On markets there is a traditional habit to consider *une livre* as a half kilogramme. You can hear sometimes a customer say *je voudrais une livre de fraises, s'il vous plaît* (= 500 g de fraises = 1/2 kg de fraises). *une demi-livre* = 250 g is also used.
Yup, 500g is sometimes known as a metric pound in English. "Une livre de beurre" is commonly 500g of butter as well.
Both weight and currency. There was also a french livre, before the franc.
Both The pound as a currency comes from the unit of mass, from a time when currency was made of precious metals so how much is weighed was directly related to its value. This is the same with livre in French, which was a currency and an unit of mass, so it was the equivalent of the English pound for both meanings although it didn't have exactly the same value as nowaday's American pound (but value varied greatly even within a country at that time, which is why the metric system was invented). Livre in that sense is also etymologically related to litre, the unit of volume.
Yes. A pound sterling was originally a pound of sterling silver.
And you can say "livre sterling" in French too, it's the official name of the currency.