Pint

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The pint is a unit of volume or capacity. It is used mainly in the U.S., the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The value differs between countries, and the U.S. has two types of pint:

1 Imperial pint (UK) = 20 UK fluid ounces ≈ 568 mL (0.56826125 litres more exactly)

1 Imperial pint (UK) = 4 UK gills (this was the legal definition although in some areas a gill of milk or beer referred to 1/2 pint; elsewhere a gill was the 1/3 pint of milk given free to school children)

1 pint (U.S., wet) = 16 U.S. fluid ounces = 2 U.S. cups ≈ 473 mL (0.473176473 litres exactly)

1 pint (U.S., dry) ≈ 551 mL (0.5506104713575 litres exactly)

A 375ml bottle of liquor in the U.S. and New Brunswick is referred to as a "pint," hearkening back to the days when liquor came in actual U.S. pints, quarts, and half-gallons.

As part of the metrication process, the pint in the UK and in Kenya is now only used as a measure for beer (see pint glass) and cider when sold by the glass (in public houses for instance) and milk (although milk is also sold in metric quantities). Many recipes published in the UK still provide ingredient quantities in imperial and metric, 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 500 or 600 ml. Ireland has completed its metrication process and the pint is only used for serving beer, stout and cider.

[edit] History

The pint is defined as 1/8 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) as its basic liquid measure, from which the U.S. wet pint is derived, and the British corn gallon (1/8 of a standard "Winchester" bushel of corn, or 268.8 cubic inches) as its dry measure, from which the U.S. 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.

The UK pint is officially defined as 0.56826125 litres precisely in The Units of Measurement Regulations 1995.

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.

[edit] Translation notes

When translating to and from French, be aware that although the word pinte has the same root, it sometimes designates a different unit of volume. In French Canada in particular, the pint is the chopine whilst the quart is the pinte. In Flanders, the word pint only refers to a 25cl glass of lager. Some West- and East-Flemish dialects use it as a word for beaker.