strike

For eels, see stike.

In England and its colonies, 13th–19th centuries, a measure of capacity used for grain, usually 2 bushels, about 70.5 liters, and equal to ¼ seam. It varied, however, from shire to shire, with values as low as ½ bushel and as high as 4. The word comes from the strike, a stick used to level the grain in a measure.

With the introduction of imperial measure in 1824, the strike became 2 imperial bushels (½ coomb, or ¼ quarter), about 72.74 liters.

Lederer reports the use of the strike in Connecticut in 1631.¹

Courtney reported that in west Cornwall, in the 19^th century, a strike was "a Winchester bushel; the third of a Cornish one, which contained 24 gallons."²

1. Richard M. Lederer, Jr.
Colonial American English. A Glossary.
Essex, Connecticut: A Verbatim Book, 1985.

Page 223.

2. M. A. Courtney.
West Cornwall.
in Glossary of Words in Use in Cornwall.
Published for the English Dialect Society.
London: Trübner and Company, 1880.