British Imperial System
- noun
- Archaic
:
Sistema Imperial Británico
- Many countries that were once colonies still refer to the British imperial system for certain measurements.
Examples
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The British imperial system includes units such as the pint, which is commonly used for serving beverages.
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Importantly for his new appointment, he possessed both a thorough familiarity with the southern colonies and a keen understanding of the British imperial system.
Academic text (2014) -
This open trading system was the hallmark of the British imperial system, which operationalized liberal world trade for its own benefit, including the domination of financial and capital markets.
Academic text (1991) -
The British imperial system used measurements like the foot and pound to standardize trade.
Synonyms
1
4.8
A system of measures like the foot and pound used in Britain
A system of measurement using units like the foot, pound, and pint that is used mainly in the United States
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally transparent: a learner who knows 'British' (relating to Britain), 'imperial' (relating to the empire / imperial units), and 'system' (a set of rules or units) can infer this refers to the system of units used in Britain. The lexical items are cognate or common across many languages and follow a straightforward noun phrase pattern, so the meaning is predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
British Imperial System may come from when Britain made one set of measures official for its empire, so many places used the same units. That's why the name links British and 'imperial' to old measures like inch, foot, pound, and pint, meaning the traditional system of measures used before metric.