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gallon.

A unit of volume, equivalent to eight pints

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɡælən/
  1. A unit of volume, equivalent to eight pints

  2. exactly 4.54609 liters; an imperial gallon

    Canada · UK
  3. 231 cubic inches or approximately 3.785 liters for liquids (a "U.S. liquid gallon")

    US
  4. one-eighth of a U.S. bushel or approximately 4.405 liters for dry goods (a "U.S. dry gallon").

    US
  5. A large quantity (of any liquid).

    in-plural · informal
    The pipe burst and gallons of water flooded into the kitchen.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English gallon, galoun, galun, from Old Northern French galun, galon (“liquid measure”) (compare Old French jalon), from Late Latin galum, galus (“measure of wine”), from Vulgar Latin *galla (“vessel”), possibly from Gaulish *galla, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kel- (“goblet”). Cognate with Ancient Greek κύλιξ (kúlix, “cup”), Sanskrit कलश (kalaśa, “jar, pitcher; measure of liquid”). Related to Old French gille (“wine measure”) (from Medieval Latin gillō (“earthenware jar”)), Old French jale (“bowl”), Old French jaloie (“measure of capacity”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.