Winchester quart: a chemical bottle's changing size
A cylindrical bottle with a narrow neck carries an unusual British measure name: the Winchester quart. Used informally for certain chemicals shipped in these bottles, it originally held two British Imperial quarts, about 2.273 liters. Its general capacity is now exactly 2.5 liters. The change links an older quart expression to a later liter size while the name continues to identify the bottle measure. Both its shape and its chemical-shipping use belong to that identity. The familiar word quart sits within a name whose stated capacity has changed, rather than fixing the bottle at its original volume forever.
The origin of the name Winchester quart is unknown. A similarly named measure, the Winchester bushel, is the traditional British name for what is now the U.S. bushel, but the chemical bottle measure is unrelated to it. The bushel belongs to its own measurement history, while the bottle has its narrow-necked cylindrical form and its changing capacity. The uncertainty about the bottle's name leaves a gap in its naming history, even though its earlier and later volumes are known. A connection between the two Winchester measures does not explain that gap.
English liquid measurement also left a lasting mark through the wine gallon. This former English unit held 231 cubic inches and became the official gallon for liquid measurement in the United States. It is now usually called the U.S. liquid gallon. Its history follows a different route from that of the Winchester quart: an English liquid volume became an American official measure, with a name that emphasizes its later setting. The cubic-inch definition identifies the volume beneath the changing terminology. In one case a gallon acquired a national name; in the other, a bottle name continued alongside a different generally used liter capacity.
Smaller liquid quantities carried names drawn from glasses. In U.S. bartending, a wineglass is an informal unit equal to four U.S. fluid ounces, about 118.3 milliliters. It matches the traditional gill. The name belongs to bartending measurement rather than the shipment of chemicals. A glass-associated word can consequently have a defined volume quite apart from the everyday shape suggested by its name. Here the amount is expressed in fluid ounces and milliliters, with the gill providing another equivalent. The wineglass belongs to a smaller liquid scale than the bottle associated with the Winchester quart, within a different practical setting.
British recipes use a wineglassful of a different size. It holds 2.5 British Imperial fluid ounces, five tablespoonfuls, half a gill, or about 71.0 milliliters. Another equivalent is 0.30 U.S. cup. The kitchen measure gathers several volume expressions around a single recipe quantity. Its fluid-ounce system is British Imperial, whereas the bartending wineglass uses U.S. fluid ounces. Even the similar names do not make their volumes identical. Cooking and bartending thus preserve separate glass-based measures, each with its own scale and use, alongside the narrow-necked chemical bottle and the gallon that crossed from English to American liquid measurement.
Dry commodities had their own shifting measures. The historic English wey began as a weight unit of about two hundredweight. Its name came from the Old English word meaning weight. Later it became a volume unit for a variety of dry goods, and its size varied. Roughly, a wey represented about 40 bushels, two cubic yards, or 1.5 cubic meters. Unlike a bottle's stated liquid capacity, this term moved between weight and volume. A name rooted in weighing came to express the space occupied by dry commodities, with different sizes accompanying its uses rather than one fixed amount for every setting.
Moving water introduced another measurement problem: flow through an opening. The traditional water inch was supposed to equal gravity-driven flow through a circular hole one inch in diameter. The flow also depended on the pressure of the water above the opening. One estimate gave fourteen U.S. pints per minute, or 2520 U.S. gallons per day, equivalent to 6.624 liters per minute. It assumed a constant water level one-twelfth of an inch above the top of the hole. The size of the opening alone therefore did not complete the measurement; the water level was part of the conditions behind that estimate.
A larger water-inch estimate was 500 cubic feet per day, or 3740 U.S. gallons per day, about 9.832 liters per minute. That estimate may have depended on a mid-nineteenth-century British engineering definition. It placed the center of the hole one inch and one line below the surface, putting the top of the opening seven-twelfths of an inch below the water level. Where a named bottle expressed capacity, the water inch tied a volume over time to an opening and the water above it. The engineering conditions determined how much water the traditional name could represent.