Weights and measures: Scottish liquid capacity
The main unit of liquid capacity was the Scots pint (originally from the Latin, pingo, pinctum meaning ‘to paint’, via various European languages, such as the French pinte and Dutch pint; equating the size of the measure with a painted mark on a measuring jug or bowl). The pint was sometimes referred to as the ‘jug’ or ‘joug’. Before 1426 there were 6 pints in a gallon (from the old French galon or jalon, meaning a ‘jar’ or ‘bowl’) and after 1426 this was changed to 8 pints in a gallon. Half a pint was a chopin (from the French liquid measure, the chopine), and a quarter of a pint was a mutchkin (from the diminutive of a kind of cap, a mutch). A sixteenth of a pint was a gill (from the Old French, gelle, a wine measure or ‘flask’). The size of a pint, from which all other measures are derived, was increased in 1426 and again in c.1500.[8] Before 1426 there were separate measures for ale and wine. Note that metric equivalents shown should be regarded as approximate.
Further information on Scots measurements can be found in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language <https://dsl.ac.uk/> [accessed 24 April 2024].
Compilers: SCAN Contributors (2000). Editor: Elspeth Reid (2021)
Related Knowledge Base Entries
Weights and measures: origins of weights and measures in Scotland
Weights and Measures: Scottish Distance and Area
Weights and Measures: Scottish Dry Capacity
Weights and Measures: Scottish Weight
Bibliography
Buchanan, George, Tables for Converting the Weights and Measures Hitherto in Use in Great Britain…also Abstracts of the Jury Verdicts throughout Scotland in Regard to the Weights and Measures of Each County (Edinburgh 1829)
Connor, R. D., and A. D. C. Simpson, Weights and Measures in Scotland: A European Perspective, ed. by A. D. Morrison-Low (NMSE, 2004)
References
[1] R. D. Connor and A. D. C. Simpson, Weights and Measures in Scotland: A European Perspective, ed. by A. D. Morrison-Low (NMSE, 2004), p. 753.
[2] Connor & Simpson, Weights and Measures in Scotland p. 753.
[3] Connor & Simpson, Weights and Measures in Scotland p. 753.
[4] Connor & Simpson, Weights and Measures in Scotland p. 753.
[5] George Buchanan, Tables for converting the weights and measures hitherto in use in Great Britain…also abstracts of the jury verdicts throughout Scotland in regard to the weights and measures of each county (Edinburgh 1829) p. 26.
[6] Buchanan, Tables for converting the weights and measures p. 132.
[7] Buchanan, Tables for converting the weights and measures p. 26.
[8] Connor & Simpson, Weights and Measures in Scotland p. 753.