medimnus

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an ancient Greek unit of dry capacity, varying by place and period and equal in Athens to roughly 52 liters or one and a half bushels

   The law assigned each household one medimnus of grain for the month.

Borrowed through Latin medimnus from Ancient Greek medimnos, a dry-capacity measure; its deeper origin is uncertain. English also has the less common shortened variant medimn. Because standards differed among Greek cities and periods, modern equivalents are necessarily approximate.

Topics