pint

[pahynt]

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

The pint is an English unit of volume or capacity in the imperial system and United States customary units. The imperial version is 20 imperial fluid ounces and is equivalent to 568 mL, while the U.S. version is 16 U.S. fluid ounces and is equivalent to 473 mL. Pints are commonly abbreviated as either "p" or "pt".

As with other measurement units used in the imperial system and USA, the pint used to be a common measure throughout Europe (differing in exact value from country to country) but was replaced in most of Europe with the metric system during the nineteenth century.

Definitions

Imperial pint

The imperial pint is equal one eighth of an imperial gallon. It is used in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries, though mostly replaced by metric units.

1 imperial pint	=		imperial gallons
=		imperial quarts
=	4	imperial gills
=	20	imperial fluid ounces
=	568.26125	millilitres (exactly) ≈ 568 ml
≈	34.677429099	cubic inches
≈	1.2009499255	U.S. liquid pints
≈	1.0320567435	U.S. dry pints
≈	1.25	lbs of water at 19.44°C (67°F)

United States liquid pint

The United States liquid pint is equal one eighth of a United States liquid gallon. It is used commonly in the United States.

1 U.S. liquid pint	=		U.S. liquid gallons
=		U.S. liquid quarts
=	2	U.S. cups
=	4	U.S. fluid gills
=	16	U.S. fluid ounces
=	28.875	cubic inches (exactly)
=	473.176473	millilitres (exactly) ≈ 473 ml
≈	0.83267418463	imperial pints
≈	0.85936700738	U.S. dry pints

United States dry pint

The United States dry pint is equal one eighth of a United States dry gallon. It is used in the United States but is not as common as the liquid pint.

1 U.S. dry pint	=		U.S. dry gallons
=		U.S. dry quarts
=	33.6003125	cubic inches (exactly)
=	550.6104713575	millilitres (exactly) ≈ 551 ml
≈	0.96893897192	imperial pints
≈	1.1636471861	U.S. liquid pints

Metric pint

One metric pint (used informally) is equal to 500 ml.Scottish pint

There was a now-obsolete unit of measurement in Scotland known as the Scottish pint or joug and equal to three imperial pints. It remained in use until the 19th century, and survived significantly longer than most of the old Scottish measurements.

History

The pint is defined as one eighth of a gallon. Other versions of the gallon were defined for different commodities, and there were equally many versions of the pint.

America adopted the British wine gallon (defined in 1707 as 231 cubic inches exactly (3 in × 7 in × 11 in)) as its basic liquid measure, from which the U.S. wet pint is derived, and the British corn gallon (⅛ of a standard “Winchester” bushel of corn, or 268.8 cubic inches) as its dry measure, from which the US dry pint is derived.

In 1824 the British parliament replaced all its variant gallons with a new imperial gallon based on ten pounds of distilled water at 62 °F (277.42 cubic inches), from which the UK pint is derived.

Effects of metrication

As part of the metrication process, the pint in the UK is now required to be used only as a measure for beer and cider when sold by the glass (see pint glass) – in public houses for instance. The measure is sometimes used for other goods, particularly milk; although since labels must give priority to metric measurements this will be shown as "568 ml (1 pint)", or just "568 ml" (see Metrication in the United Kingdom).

Many recipes published in the UK still provide ingredient quantities in imperial, where the pint is often used as a unit for larger liquid quantities. Most new recipes are now published in metric only with the "pint" being rounded to a convenient metric value.

Kenya and Virgin Islands also require that beer and cider are sold in pints. In the Republic of Ireland, the pint is used for serving beer and cider. Sometimes milk is also sold by the pint.

In Australia and New Zealand, a subtle change was made in 1 pint milk bottles during the conversion from Imperial to metric in the 1970s. The height and diameter of the milk bottle remained unchanged, so that existing equipment for handling and storing such bottles was unaffected, but the shape was subtly adjusted to increase the capacity from 568 ml to 600 ml - a nice, round, metric measure. Such milk bottles are no longer officially referred to as pints. The pint glass in pubs in Australia (which is so called) remains closer to the standard Imperial pint, at 570 ml. A pint of beer in Australia or New Zealand is 570 ml, except in South Australia where a pint is 425 ml and 570 ml is called an imperial pint.

A 375 ml bottle of liquor in the US and the Canadian maritime provinces is sometimes referred to as a “pint”, harking back to the days when liquor came in actual US pints, quarts, and half-gallons.

In some regions of France, a standard 250 ml measure of beer is known as "a half", originally meaning a half pint.

Etymology

pint The French word pinte is etymologically related, but historically described a larger unit, of about 952.1 ml. In French Canada in particular, the imperial pint is actually the chopine whilst the imperial quart is the pinte. In France it's sometimes used to describe a 500 ml glass of beer. In Flanders, the word pint only refers to a 250 ml glass of lager. Some West- and East-Flemish dialects use it as a word for beaker.