The pint (, ; symbol pt, sometimes abbreviated as p) is a unit of volume or capacity in both the imperial and United States customary measurement systems. In both of those systems, it is one-eighth of a gallon. The British imperial pint is 20.095% larger than the US pint because the two systems are defined differently. Almost all other countries have standardized on the metric system, so although some of them still also have traditional units called pints (such as for beverages), the volume varies by regional custom. The imperial pint (≈ 568 mL) is used in the United Kingdom, other Commonwealth countries and Ireland. In the United States, two kinds of pint are used: a liquid pint (≈ 473 mL) and a less common dry pint (≈ 551 mL). Other former British colonies, such as Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, converted to the metric system in the 1960s and 1970s, so while the term pint may still be in common use in these countries, it may no longer refer to the British imperial pint once used throughout the British Empire.
Name
Pint comes from the Old French word pinte and perhaps ultimately from Vulgar Latin pincta meaning "painted", for marks painted on the side of a container to show capacity. In France, the French word pinte is now used to describe a half-litre, slightly smaller than an Imperial pint, but in Canadian French it is used to describe an Imperial quart and the French word chopine is used for an Imperial pint.
Definitions
Imperial pint The imperial pint is equal to one-eighth of an imperial gallon of exactly 4.54609 L, i.e. 568.26125 millilitres.
US liquid pint In the United States, traditional length and volume measures have been legally standardized for commerce by the international yard and pound agreement of 1959, using the definition of 1 yard as 0.9144 meters: from this definition, the metric equivalents for inches, feet, miles, area measures, and measures of volume are determined. The liquid pint is legally defined as one-eighth of a gallon of exactly 231 cubic inches, i.e. 28.875 cubic inches or 473.176473 millilitres.
US dry pint In the United States, the dry pint is equal to 1/64 of a US bushel of exactly 2150.42 cubic inches, i.e. 33.6003125 cubic inches or 550.6104713575 milliltres.
Other pints
The Scottish pint or joug, an obsolete Scottish unit, is equal to 1696 mL (2.93 Imperial pints). It remained in use until 1826, surviving significantly longer than most other old Scottish measurements. The word pint is one of numerous false friends between English and French. They are not the same unit although they have the same linguistic origin. The French word pinte is etymologically related, but historically described a larger unit. The Royal pint (pinte du roi) was 48 French cubic inches (952.1 mL), but regional pints varied in size depending on locality and on commodity (usually wine or olive oil) varying from 0.95 L to over 2 L. In Canada, the Weights and Measures Act (R.S. 1985) defines a pint in English as one eighth of a gallon, but defines a pinte in French as one quarter of a gallon. Thus, if "a pint of beer" is ordered in English, servers are legally required to serve an imperial pint (568 mL) of beer, but under the federal Act, "une pinte de bière" legally refers to the larger imperial quart (1136 mL), while an imperial pint is designated as une chopine. However, in practice and according to Quebec’s Board of the French Language, une pinte commonly refers to the same 568 mL imperial pint as in English. In Flanders, the word pintje, meaning 'little pint', refers only to a 250 mL glass of lager. Some West- and East-Flemish dialects use it as a word for beaker. The equivalent word in German, Pintchen, refers to a glass of a third of a litre in Cologne and the Rhineland. In South Australia, ordering "a pint of beer" results in 425 mL (15 fl oz) being served. Customers must specifically request "an Imperial pint of beer" to get 570 mL (20 fl oz). Australians from other states often contest the size of their beers in Adelaide.
Equivalence One US liquid pint of water weighs 1.043 pounds (16.69 oz), which gives rise to an American saying: "A pint's a pound the world around". However, the statement does not hold around the world, because the British imperial pint, which was also the standard measure in Britain's former colonies – such as Ireland, Canada, Australia, India, Malaysia, New Zealand and South Africa – weighs 1.253 pounds (20.05 oz). This prompted the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge to coin a saying for use in Commonwealth countries: "a pint of pure water weighs a pound and a quarter".
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