Almost all other countries have standardized on the metric system, so although some of them still also have traditional units called pints (such as for beverages), the volume varies by regional custom.

[4] It is linguistically related, though greatly diverging in meaning, to Pinto – an Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese name for a person with a speckled or dark complexion, often used as a surname in these languages.

[13] However, the statement does not hold around the world, because the British imperial pint, which was also the standard measure in Britain's former colonies - such as Australia, India, Malaysia, New Zealand and South Africa - weighs 1.2528 pounds (20.0448 oz).

This prompted the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge to coin a saying for use in Commonwealth countries: "a pint of pure water weighs a pound and a quarter".

In the Latin of the apothecaries' system, the symbol O (octarius or octavius; plural octarii or octavii – reflecting the "eighth" concept in its octa- syllable) was used for the pint.

Britain's North American colonies adopted the British wine gallon, defined in 1707 as exactly 231 cubic inches (3 in × 7 in × 11 in) as their basic liquid measure, from which the US wet pint is derived, and the British corn gallon (1⁄8 of a standard "Winchester" bushel of corn, or exactly 268.8025 cubic inches) as its dry measure, from which the US dry pint is derived.

The various Canadian provinces continued to use the Queen Anne Winchester wine gallon as a basis for their pint until 1873, well after Britain adopted the imperial system in 1824.

The term is still in limited use in parts of France and Central Europe, notably some areas of Germany[17] and Switzerland, where ein Schoppen is colloquially used for roughly half a litre.

In Spanish holiday resorts frequented by British tourists, 'pint' is often taken to mean a beer glass (especially a dimple mug).

[citation needed] In the British and Irish metrication processes, the pint was replaced by metric units as the legally defined primary unit of measure for trading by volume or capacity, except for the sale of draught beer and cider, and milk in returnable containers.

[22][23] In Australia and New Zealand, a subtle change was made to 1 pint milk bottles during the conversion from imperial to metric in the 1970s.

In New Zealand, there is no longer any legal requirement for beer to be served in standard measures: in pubs, the largest size of glass, which is referred to as a pint, varies, but usually contains 425 mL.

[25][26][27] With the allowed margin of error of 0.5 fluid ounces, a "pint" that is less than 554 mL of beer is an offence, though this regulation is often violated and rarely enforced.

[31] In France, a standard 250 mL measure of beer is known as un demi ("a half"), originally meaning a half-pint.