Gill (gi)

One-quarter of a pint, traditionally used for measuring spirits and pub pour sizes.

A gill is a quarter of a pint, five fluid ounces, and it was the standard measure of spirits in British pubs before metrication. Its subdivisions are where it gets interesting. English pubs typically served a sixth of a gill, about 23.7 millilitres, while Scottish pubs served a fifth at 28.4: a noticeably larger measure for the same money, and a divergence that persisted until the Weights and Measures Act of 1985 imposed 25 and 35 millilitres across the country. Pronounced to rhyme with mill rather than with hill, the gill also appears in the apothecary tradition and in old cookery books, where a gill of cream means something precise rather than approximate. The name is unrelated to the gills of a fish and descends instead from a medieval Latin word for a drinking vessel.