A couple of notes:
American recipes rarely use pints and quarts as dry measures, except perhaps for things like pints of blueberries or ice cream or the like. I have included the dry measures for completeness' sake, but the two measures are close enough that I usually just use a liquid cup measure to measure out pints and, sometimes, quarts.
American recipes are more likely to use teaspoons and tablespoons than fluid ounces for the purposes of measurement in cooking.
| Term | Abbreviation | Nationality, if applicable | Dry or liquid | Metric equivalent | Equivalent within system |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cup | c., C. | usually liquid | 237 milliliters | 16 tablespoons or 8 fluid ounces | |
| fluid ounce | fl oz, fl. oz. | American | liquid only | 29.57 milliliters | |
| British | either | 28.41 milliliters | |||
| gallon | gal. | American | liquid only | 3.785 liters | 4 quarts |
| British | either | 4.546 liters | 4 quarts | ||
| inch | in, in. | 2.54 centimeters | |||
| ounce | oz, oz. | American | dry | 28.35 grams | 1/16 pound |
| liquid | see FLUID OUNCE | see FLUID OUNCE | |||
| pint | p., pt. | American | liquid | 0.473 liter | 1/8 gallon or 16 fluid ounces |
| dry | 0.551 liter | 1/2 quart | |||
| British | either | 0.568 liter | |||
| pound | lb. | dry | 453.592 grams | 16 ounces | |
| quart | q., qt, qt. | American | liquid | 0.946 liter | 1/4 gallon or 32 ounces |
| dry | 1.101 liters | 2 pints | |||
| British | either | 1.136 liters | |||
| teaspoon | t., tsp., tsp | either | about 5 milliliters | 1/3 tablespoon | |
| tablespoon | T., tbs., tbsp. | either | about 15 milliliters | 3 teaspoons or 1/2 fluid ounce |
EQUIVALENCES:
3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon = 1/2 fl. oz.
16 tablespoons = 8 fl. oz. = 1 cup
16 ounces (dry) = 1 pound
1 gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints = 16 cups