In France, 13th – 19th centuries, a unit of liquid capacity for wine and other beverages, = ¼ setier or chopine = 1/8 pinte = 4 roquilles, about 116.42 milliliters (about 0.245 U.S. liquid pint).
Poçon was the original spelling, and sometimes pochin. Posson occurs in laws of the 16th century. By the late 17th century the unit was beginning to be spelled poisson, though writers as late as the 19th century condemned that spelling as vulgar.
Du Cange (1678), under pochonus.
Bailly (1905), page 278.
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