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.

Famous quotes containing the word barrel:

“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)

“The watchers in their leopard suits
Waited till it was time,
And aimed between the belt and boot
And let the barrel climb.”
—Louis Simpson (b. 1923)

“My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)