Mutchkins

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small Scottish unit of liquid measure approximately equal to a third of a pint ; a quaint or archaic term for a diminutive portion of drink or liquid ; a historical measurement used primarily in Scotland for household quantities of liquids
2. A traditional Scottish quantity used to measure liquids, roughly one-third of a pint ; a minor or modest amount of any beverage, especially used in historical contexts ; an old-fashioned Scottish term indicating a small volumetric unit primarily for spirits or other liquids
3. An obsolete Scottish measure for liquids about a third of a pint ; a term referring to a small drink or portion of fluid in Scottish usage ; a regional unit once employed for quantifying alcoholic or other beverages in everyday Scottish life

Etymology: "Mutchkins" is the plural of "mutchkin", a Scottish unit of liquid measure, and the singular has a chain of borrowings behind it. It came into Scots from Middle Dutch "mudseken", a small measure of the same kind, and that word was in turn built from "mutse", a Dutch dry measure. Trace the chain one step further and "mutse" leads back to Classical Latin "modius", the Roman unit for dry goods such as grain, which was roughly a peck. The surprise is that a term for measuring dry grain ended up measuring whisky and ale. The Dutch word was originally a measure for solids, and the name was carried over to liquid measures as it passed into Scots, so the connection to grain survives only in the ancestry of the word. Scottish usage therefore reflects a shift from dry goods to drink, rather than any change in the sense of the Latin original.

Synonyms: measures, volumes, units