Definition
A unit of liquid measure equal to one-half of a quart or one-eighth of a gallon. In legal contexts, the pint appears primarily in statutes and regulations governing weights and measures, trade, and the sale of goods — particularly in licensing law (taverns and alehouses), commercial codes, and commodity regulation where precise volumetric definitions carry legal consequence.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A unit of measurement equal to half a quart; also used informally to refer to a pint-sized container of liquid, especially beer or milk.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "A measure of capacity, equal to half a quart, or four gills, — used in liquid and dry measures."
The common meaning and legal meaning are substantially identical in definition, but the legal significance lies in precision. In weights-and-measures law and commercial regulation, "pint" is not merely approximate — it refers to a legally defined standard, and that standard has varied by jurisdiction and by what is being measured (liquid versus dry). The casual usage carries none of that legal specificity.
Common Confusion
The pint is not a uniform measure across all legal contexts or jurisdictions. A U.S. liquid pint (approximately 473 mL), a U.S. dry pint (approximately 551 mL), and an imperial pint (approximately 568 mL) are distinct quantities. Historical legal sources — including all three dictionary entries in this corpus — do not distinguish among these variants, which creates a research trap when reading older statutes or commercial contracts. A regulation specifying "pints" without further qualification may mean different things depending on the era, the commodity, and the jurisdiction.
Why It Matters in Research
The legal significance of "pint" is almost entirely statutory and regulatory rather than common-law doctrinal. Researchers encounter the term in several contexts:
Weights and measures law: Federal and state statutes establishing lawful standards of measure define the pint with precision. The National Bureau of Standards (now NIST) publications and state weights-and-measures acts are the authoritative modern sources, not legal dictionaries.
Licensing and liquor law: Tavern licenses, dram shop regulations, and alcohol control statutes have historically specified permissible serving or container sizes in pints. These provisions vary significantly by state and era. An early 20th-century licensing case involving "pints" should be read against the applicable state's statutory definition, not an assumed universal standard.
Trade and commodity regulation: Sale-of-goods disputes involving beverages, dairy, and dry goods have turned on whether a container labeled or sold as a "pint" conformed to the legally required measure.
Historical sources in this corpus give only the bare arithmetic definition. They offer no guidance on the dry/liquid distinction or imperial versus U.S. customary divergence — a significant gap for researchers working with pre-20th-century materials or transatlantic commercial documents.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries — Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's — define pint identically in substance: half a quart, or one-eighth of a gallon. The near-verbatim agreement across all three entries reflects that this was treated as a settled, uncontroversial measure requiring no elaboration. None of the historical entries acknowledge the dry/liquid distinction, the imperial standard, or any jurisdictional variation in the legal definition of the pint. This uniformity is itself informative: it tells researchers that historical legal dictionaries treated the pint as a fixed fact rather than a term of art requiring interpretive guidance. That assumption does not always hold when reading older statutes in context.
Jurisdictional Note
The U.S. dry pint and U.S. liquid pint are distinct measures under federal standards. The imperial pint — still the legal standard in the United Kingdom and used in older Commonwealth sources — differs from both. Researchers working with pre-20th-century British legal materials, colonial-era American statutes, or international trade documents should not assume the U.S. liquid pint as the default.