Barrel

Barrel

A barrel, cask, or tun is a hollow cylindrical container, traditionally made of wooden staves bound by wooden or metal hoops. Traditionally, the barrel was a standard size of measure referring to a set capacity or weight of a given commodity. For example, in the UK a barrel of beer refers to a quantity of 36 imperial gallons. Wine was shipped in barrels of 119 litres (31 US gal). A small barrel is called a keg.

Read more about Barrel.

Famous quotes containing the word barrel:

    I am from time to time congratulating myself on my general want of success as a lecturer; apparent want of success, but is it not a real triumph? I do my work clean as I go along, and they will not be likely to want me anywhere again. So there is no danger of my repeating myself, and getting to a barrel of sermons, which you must upset, and begin again with.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover;
    A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year;
    The spring begins before the winter’s over.
    Elinor Wylie (1885–1928)

    I do not know if you remember the tale of the girl who saves the ship under mutiny by sitting on the powder barrel with her lighted torch ... and all the time knowing that it is empty? This has seemed to me a charming image of the women of my time. There they were, keeping the world in order ... by sitting on the mystery of life, and knowing themselves that there was no mystery.
    Isak Dinesen [Karen Blixen] (1885–1962)