Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama (July 4th edition): Homerkin

Heeeere comes the Fourth of July! Time to raise a homerkin, perhaps?

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According to Joe Gillard's The Little Book of Lost Words, homerkin is a 17th century English noun meaning "a measure of beer." A measure of beer sounds like a good way to toast a holiday in the middle of a (blazing) hot summer.

But not so fast...

In a Gigglewater411.com post titled "A homerkin, anyone?" one commenter offers the following elucidation:

A homer is an old Hebrew word for a unit of measurement for liquids, equal to 10 “baths,” or approximately 55 gallons. The suffix kin is an old English addition to denote diminutive. So a homerkin is likely a unit of liquid measure equal to half of a homer; or, approximately 27 gallons.

Twenty-seven gallons of beer?? That is a lot of beer.

Let's dive a little deeper and see what else we can find.

A homerkin's worth, perhaps?
Image by Digital Photo and Design DigiPD.com from Pixabay

Homerkin shows up again in The Creature's Cookbook's "Cool Beer Glasses Perfect for Wordsmiths," Book Polygamist's "Save the Words Saturday," and The Guardian's "Move to rescue obscure words." However, it doesn't even register on the Google Ngram viewer or appear in the usual online dictionaries.

My seven-pound Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary (Fully revised and updated) did list homer as "a Hebrew unit of capacity equal to ten baths in liquid measure," with a first use date 1525–35. (I also found that definition of homer in Wikipedia, here.)

-kin is defined in my Webster's as "a diminutive suffice of nouns." Well, I knew that. I'm still not certain how we get -kin equating to half, but so be it. In any case, I gather a homerkin is a lot of beer, probably more than fits your average glass or stein.

Okay, I'm thirsty now. Time for some iced tea.

Wishing you all a safe and pleasant Fourth of July!

Fourth of July, Seattle WA, 1888
By Theodore E. Peiser - Asahel Curtis Photo Company Photographs, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72641975