Etymology Explorer › English

Where does “pint” come from?

Pint comes from Middle English pinte, from Old French pinte, from Vulgar Latin pincta, the feminine past participle of Latin pingere, meaning to paint or mark.

pint (English): A unit of volume, equivalent to; A pint of milk;...

Definitions

  1. A unit of volume, equivalent to; A pint of milk;...

Ancestry of “pint”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Middle Englishpintepint
2Old Frenchpinte—
3Vulgar Latinpinctaa mark used to indicate a level of quantity...
4LatinPictus—
5Latin-tusForms the past participle of verbs; Forms...
6Proto-Italic-tus—
7Proto-Indo-European-tusDerives action nouns from verb roots

Words derived from “pint”

  • pinter
  • pintless
  • half-pint
  • pintman
  • パイント
  • painti
Every word from Proto-Indo-European -tus →