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.Fifty imperial pints or sixty US liquid pints are both very close to one cubic foot. It is used in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries, though mostly replaced by metric units.

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.

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.

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).