Demiard

These are glass milk bottles from 1950s Quebec. The large bottle is a pinte (quart), the middle size a chopine (pint) and the small size a demiard (½-pint).[1] The latter was used for cream.

A demiard is a traditional French measure of volume which, after the French revolution introduced new decimal systems, persisted in French-speaking areas of North America such as Quebec and Louisiana. It is a half of a chopine or a quarter of a pinte. It has been asserted that it was originally half of an ard, an otherwise unknown unit.[2] The French pinte was, in Paris, 48 cubic inches (pouces du Roi) but, in North America, the terms became associated with Anglo-Saxon measures of a similar size (pinte≡quart; chopine≡pint; demiard≡½-pint).

In modern Canadian usage it is a unit equal to 0.284 litres.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Marcel Trudel, Introduction to New France, p. 222
  2. ↑ Collections, 20, Wisconsin State Historical Society, 1854, p. 440, The Canadian-French say demiard, instead of demi-chopine for half a pint. While the term demiard is oommon, ard is obsolete. Thanks for this information are due Col. Crawford Lindsay, of Quebec.
  3. ↑ "Demiard: nom masculin". Larousse. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
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