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Origin documented
“Not an ounce of sense”
What it means
Entirely without judgement.
Where it comes from
An ounce is a sixteenth of a pound, small enough to stand for the least measurable quantity of anything abstract while still being a weight people handled daily.
How sure are we?
The construction is old and productive: not an ounce of, not a grain of, not a scrap of. All use a small unit as the floor below which nothing exists.