Overview
The gill (pronounced like the name "Jill") is a traditional unit for measuring liquid volume. It is defined as one quarter of a pint and appears in older British, Irish and American contexts. Although now largely obsolete in everyday use, the term still occurs in historical texts, recipes and discussions of older measures.
Definition and sizes
Because it is based on the pint, the exact volume of a gill depends on which pint is used. In the imperial system a gill equals one quarter of an imperial pint; in the United States it equals one quarter of a US pint. These two quarter-pint values are different from each other, so an "imperial gill" and a "US gill" are not identical.
History and development
The gill arose as part of customary pint-based systems of measurement used for liquids. It was convenient for serving and selling alcoholic drinks and was employed by taverns, apothecaries and household cookery. Over the 19th and 20th centuries the adoption of standardized and metric measures reduced the gill's practical role, but the name remains in literature and in descriptions of older practices.
Uses and examples
Historically a gill was used for small servings of spirits, medicinal tonics and in some recipes. Today one may encounter it in period cookbooks, historical reenactment, or regional sayings. Modern recipes and commerce generally replace gills with millilitres, fluid ounces or fractional pints for clarity.
Notable distinctions and references
- Regional difference: the imperial and US gills differ because the underlying pint differs.
- Obsolescence: the unit is seldom used in official measurement systems and has been superseded by metric units in most countries.
- Further reading: general discussions of traditional units and pint-related measures are useful for context — see a guide to units of volume (unit of volume) or historical measures (volume measurement).
For the relationship to the pint itself, see resources on the pint and its variants (pint).