chous

English

Etymology 1

Noun

chous

1. plural of chou

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Ancient Greek χοῦς (khoûs).

Alternative forms

• khous

Noun

chous (plural choes)

1. A squat, rounded form of oenochoe with a trefoil mouth.
2. An Ancient Greek unit of liquid measure correspondent to 12 cotylae.
   • 1903, Sir Charles Warren, The Ancient Cubit and Our Weights and Measures‎^[1], page 89:

     It follows that the seah must equal the urna, and the hin equal 2 Attic choes.

   • 1957, Charles Seltman, “The Trade”, in Wine in the Ancient World, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, page 137:

     Accordingly one Amphoreus Metrétés contained 12 Choes, 144 Kotyloi, 864 Kyathoi. The Amphoreus held 39·39 litres or 69·33 pints, or slightly over 8½ gallons. It may generally be assumed that the great pointed pottery jars in which wines were preserved, exported and sold were, each of them, such an amphoreus.

   • 1977, Charles W. Fornara, Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesian War (Translated Documents of Greece and Rome; 1), Baltimore, Md., London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, →ISBN, pages 168 and 170:

     Amphoreis of wine [- - -] : 590, three choes¹² […] 12. I.e., 590 amphoreis (a unit of measurement probably equivalent to 12 choes) + three choes = 7,083 choes.

   • 1996, Epigraphica Anatolica, numbers 26–29, page 139:

     […] a jar, of two metretai; a bronze jug, of four choes, and spouted cup; a tray for cups, and a second one; […]

   • 2018, Timothy Doran, Spartan Oliganthropia, Brill, →ISBN, pages 35–36:

     The amounts are significant: 8 choes of wine equals 6 gallons; a medimnos equals 48 khoinikes. A single khoinix was a day’s grain ration for a man in Athens.

Anagrams

• hocus