Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A cask.
  • noun An obsolete English measure of capacity equal to 18 imperial gallons (81.8 liters).

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A measure of capacity, half a barrel or 2 firkins.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A small barrel; an old liquid measure containing eighteen English beer gallons, or nearly twenty-two gallons, United States measure.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small barrel.
  • noun An old English liquid measure, usually being half a barrel; containing 18 English beer gallons, or nearly twenty-two gallons, United States measure.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an obsolete British unit of capacity equal to 18 Imperial gallons

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, alteration of Middle Flemish kinderkin, variant of Middle Dutch kindekijn : quintel, quintlein, quintal (from Medieval Latin quintāle; see quintal) + -kijn, diminutive suff.]

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Examples

  • Or his comic masterpiece, Mac Flecknoe, satirising an obscure Restoration rival: "A tun of man, in thy large bulk is writ,/but sure thou'rt but a kilderkin of wit" (kilderkin: an old English unit of volume equal to two firkins).

    Only a sadist would inflict Dryden on our schoolchildren Catherine Bennett 2010

  • Southcombe, marching slowly with his long limp burdens, found ready on the sand the little barrel, about as big as a kilderkin, of true and unsullied Stockholm pitch, which he had taken, as his brother took Madeira, for ripeness and for betterance, by right of change of climate.

    Springhaven Richard Doddridge 2004

  • But the figure of the woman was still more awkward: an unwieldy bulk, two extended arms which seemed to bear it up with difficulty, and looked like two carved handles from the neck to the widest part of a large kilderkin, and beneath this enormous body, two legs, naked up to the knees, which could scarcely totter along.

    Chapter XI 1909

  • Devil a drop have you left in the great kilderkin.

    The White Company Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1902

  • Devil a drop have you left in the great kilderkin.

    The White Company Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1902

  • Devil a drop have you left in the great kilderkin.

    The White Company Arthur Conan Doyle 1894

  • Two firkins, or bushels, make a measure called a rundlet or kilderkin, liquid, and a strike, dry.

    Reports and Opinions While Secretary of State 1892

  • Devil a drop have you left in the great kilderkin.

    The White Company 1890

  • Because of this fact alone I should not commend the diversion of moving save to people of very ample means as well as perfect leisure; there are more reasons than the misery of flitting why the dweller in the kilderkin should not covet the hogshead reeking of claret.

    Suburban Sketches William Dean Howells 1878

  • There is no house to which one would return, having left it, though it were the hogshead out of which one had moved into a kilderkin; for those associations whose perishing leaves us free, and preserves to us what little youth we have, were otherwise perpetuated to our burden and bondage.

    Suburban Sketches William Dean Howells 1878

Comments

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  • Variously, 81.83 litres, 2 firkins, or 18 gallons, liquid measure. "Kilderin" is ghosted - but it might make a great band name or the title of a tune (not tun).

    September 24, 2009