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Pint
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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 much of Europe with the metric system during the nineteenth century.
rial pint
- The imperial pint is equal one eighth of an imperial gallon.
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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 much of Europe with the metric system during the nineteenth century.
Definitions
Imperial pint
- The imperial pint is equal one eighth of an imperial gallon. As from 1 January 2000 it ceased to be legal within the United Kingdom for economic, health, safety or administrative purposes except when being used for the sale of milk in returnable bottles or for the dispensing of beer or cider.
| 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 (? 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 and Ireland 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 "550 ml" (see Metrication in the United Kingdom).
Many recipes published in the UK and Ireland 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 Ireland, the pint is used for serving beer and cider in bars and clubs - all other liquids and all other locations must officially use metric-only, although many people still use the Imperial system unofficially.
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.
Since metrication, the "pint of beer" served in Canadian pubs and bars has been considered a colloquial term for "a large glass of beer", rather than a unit of measure, and the size of it is at the discretion of the server. In theory, it should be the 20 ounce (568 mL) imperial pint, but in most cases it is what is loosely termed a "standard" or "18 ounce" pint (500 mL). In other cases, it may be a 16 ounce (473 mL) American pint, or a 12 ounce (375 mL) "bottle pint". It could legally be as small as 8 ounces (250 ml).
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 France, a standard 250 ml measure of beer is known as "a half" ("un demi" in French), originally meaning a half pint.
Etymology
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, pintje, only refers to a 250 ml glass of lager. Some West- and East-Flemish dialects use it as a word for beaker.
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