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Everything you need to know about measuring ounces, from terms and origin to ounces in a pint and helpful measurements.
A pint contains 16 fluid ounces.ย If that is all you need, we are happy to help! But remember,ย not all pints are the same, so read on for more helpful conversion and other measurement-related info.
Most people know the answer is 16 (at least in the USA), but we confuse the number of ounces in cups and pints. We know this, as we asked quite a few people this question before we bothered to write the article. Read on for other helpful conversions.
Weโll also give you a few tips on how to remember the conversions! Because if thereโs one thing that makes cooking easier, itโs knowing different measurements and how they measure into one another. Knowing the how and the why can actually improve your cooking and help you master your favorite dishes.
What is an ounce?
The term ounce comes from the Roman term “uncia.” An uncia was 1/12 of a Roman copper bar that was used to measure an inch’s length and an ounce’s weight.
Modern ounce weight and volume measurements, however, come from Britain.
Let’s start with fluid ounces. A fluid ounce is 1/16th of an Imperial Pint and weighs 1/16 of a pound, or 28.3 grams.ย An ounce was 480 grains or 1/12 of a pound in the apothecary system.ย Is it any wonder Britain standardized on the metric system?ย
The United States is one of only three nations that still use Imperial measurements (and thus, the pint!). The other two are Liberia and Myanmar.
What is a pint?
The term pint comes from the French word pinte. This likely comes from the Latin term โpinctaโ derived from painted marks on the side of a container to show its capacity. Where tens are our normal units of division today, ancient times used eights. In Rome, a pint was 1/8 of a gallon! Why would they choose 1/8th? Why not 1/10th like in metric? The answer is surprisingly simple. If you take a gallon of wine and divide it equally you get ยฝ a gallon, do it again you get a quart, divide it yet again and you have โ or a pint. Divide something into 1/10ths? Forget about it. Too hard.
The Romans didnโt have standard glass measuring cups. Their version of the metric system involved dividing a pile of grain or jug of wine EQUALLY.
A pint is typically defined as 16 fluid ounces in the United States. This means that there are 16 fl oz in a pint bottle and 16 oz in a standard glass of beer or soda. However, in the United Kingdom and Ireland, a pint is 20 fluid ounces. So, if youโre visiting one of these countries, remember that a pint is not the same as it is in the States! Why? Heck, we donโt know; we think they just like their beers large!
In U.S. measurements, a pint is 473 ml. As for English pints, those are 568 ml or (20 ounces as mentioned above).ย
The English and their former colonial states (Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand) all switched to the metric system, but still often use pints for ordering drinks. The rest of the world uses the metric system for this, and a ยฝ liter of beer (16.9 fl oz) is a very common serving size in most other countries.
Quick Conversions
| 8 fl oz | 1 cup | 1/2 pint | 1/4 quart | 1/16 gallon |
| 16 fl oz | 2 cups | 1 pint | 1/2 quart | 1/8 gallon |
| 32 fl oz | 4 cups | 2 pints | 1 quart | 1/4 gallon |
| 64 fl oz | 8 cups | 4 pints | 2 quarts | 1/2 gallon |
| 128 fl oz | 16 cups | 8 pints | 4 quarts | 1 gallon |
Measuring an Ounce and Pint Internationally
Now that you know how many ounces are in a pint, let’s take a look at some of the different ways to measure a pint around the world!
As mentioned previously, in U.S. measurements, a pint is 473 ml.
In Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, a pint is defined as 20 imperial ounces. This is equivalent to 18.432 U.S. fluid ounces, so it’s a little bit different than the pint in the United States. In short:
- 1 fluid Pint (U.S.) = 16 fluid Ounces (US)
- 1 fluid Pint (U.K.) = 20 fluid Ounces (UK)
In Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Sweden, a pint is defined as 500 milliliters. This works out to be about 16.91 U.S. fluid ounces, so it’s pretty close to how much one contains there!
Fluid ounces vs Dry Ounces
Things get a bit dicey when we discuss wet vs. dry measurements because theyโre not the same! Plus, we introduce a whole different type of measurement into the discussionโvolume.
Just keep in mind that you canโt use liquid and dry measuring cups interchangeably. 8 fluid ounces of water weighs 8 ounces. That is how we define fluid ounces. But if you fill that same fluid measuring cup with powdered sugar, it will NOT weigh 8 ounces. So, always use the right cup when measuring.
It may be helpful to remember that whether using wet or dry ingredients, two cups are in a pint, and two pints are in aย quart, and since a quart is short for a quarter, 4 quarts are in a gallon. Here are conversions for common ingredients for ounces to cups (which can be doubled to get ounces in a pint)!
Fluid Pints vs Dry Pints
The difference in measuring liquids and solids of course extends to pints as well. Take a pint of blueberries for example. One pint of blueberries weighs about 12 oz, despite the fact that there are 16 dry ounces in a pint! The amount fills the container differently than if it were filled with a liquid taking up 100% of the space.
So, in conclusion, there are 16 fluid ounces in a pint. Well at least in the USA, but donโt confuse fluid ounces for dry ounces. And, as always, Happy Cooking from your friends at Live Eat Learn.
I bought a Ford pickup truck in Canada. The mileage efficiency rating there is measured in liters per 100 kilometers. For the American buyers, they converted this to miles per gallon and published the numbers in their glossy brochure. So I took one home and calculated the liters/100 km to MPG myself and discovered that Ford had used an Imperial gallon and not a U.S. gallon. Of course, being a 25% larger gallon means that the calculated MPG is a bigger number, too. I actually e-mailed Ford and called their hand on this, but they denied it, although I could prove that they did. I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.
A pint of beer is 20 ounces. It doesn’t matter that a liquid pint is 16 ounces in the U.S. customary system. Forget that. When we are talking about beer, the British definition of a “pint of beer” should apply in the U.S. “A pint of beer” is a term stolen from the UK. British pubs serve pints and half-pints, 20 or 10 ounces. Restaurants and bars in the U.S. sell you 16 ounces of beer and call it a pint. It is not a pint of beer, it is 16 ounces of beer. Call it four-fifths of a pint, but don’t call it a pint because it isn’t a pint. Either put four more ounces in the glass or keep it at 16 ounces and call it something else. I know a lot of Americans were born yesterday, but some of us weren’t!
This is the United States. A pint here is 16 ounces liquid measure. This is the norm here. No one is lying or pulling the wool over anyone’s eye to say a pint of beer is 16 ounces. Everyone here lives by that. Good luck getting the whole country to change. Then a pint of cream would be 2o ounces. There are 2 pints in a quart here and 4 quarts in a gallon. So then a quart would be 40 ounces instead of 32 and a gallon would be 160 ounces instead of 128. Water meters would have to be changed. Gas pumps would have to be changed. What a waste of time and money, and that’s just the beginning. There are a lot of things people get cheated on and this is not one of them. It’s just semantics. Do you think even if they decide it is 20 ounces you’re going to get a better deal on your beer? It’s going to cost 25% more!!
A Pint and a pint are not the same thing. A Pint is a British term, commonly used in pubs, meaning a glass of beer containing 20 ounces. A pint is a volume of any liquid consisting of 20 ounces in Britain or 16 ounces in the US. American bars have stolen the name Pint, market it as a Pint, but put only 16 ounces in the glass. The British don’t say “a pint of beer” because a Pint is defined. It is beer by definition. It’s like paying a man for a racehorse and getting a Shetland Pony.
To be honest your article is still confusing to some extent. You did do an excellent job of explaining differences in different countries which is extremely helpful. You don’t discuss weight and that is a very important aspect of measurement as weight is measured in ounces which are different from liquid ounces. Really they aught to have different names for things which actually are different, but this is the world we live in.
The saying, “A pint’s a pound the world around” is a cause of consternation for many chemists. That’s only true for water, but for many people the difference is negligible for their purposes using a few liquids similar to water.
You state, “Things get a bit dicy when we get into wet vs. dry measurements, because theyโre not the same! Plus, we bring a whole different unit of measurement into it โ volume.” Both wet and dry measurements are a measure of volume, so this statement doesn’t even make sense. What you have been writing about is volume. liquid measure is volume.
Just as an aside, changing all recipes to weight for non-liquid substances actually makes sense and would make recipes more uniform because volume can change when things settle, but weight doesn’t.
US customary measures derive from the English Winchester measures, not Imperial measures. English Imperial measures date from 1824, changing the pint from 16 oz to 20 oz, and the gallon from 231 cubic inches to 10 lbs of water at 62ยฐ F. This actually changes the ounce slightly, to 0.96 US oz, so that the Imp pint is 19.2 US oz.
Second, there is no measurement in which “a pint is a pound.” That was always an approximation. In US customary measures, a gallon is 8.34 lb, and a pint is 1.043