puncheon

plural puncheons · alternative punchion

1. A figured stamp, die, or punch, used by goldsmiths, cutlers, etc.
2. A short, upright piece of timber in framing; a short post; an intermediate stud.

   he chose to regard [his father] with a lowering and suspicious mien, unless it were in the dead hours of the night, when he developed a morbid craving to be trotted back and forth and up and down the puncheon floor [...].

   1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country, Nebraska, published 2005, page 7

3. A piece of roughly dressed timber with one face finished flat (by either hewing or sawing).
4. A split log or heavy slab of timber with the face smoothed, used especially for flooring but also for log cabin walls, piers, or plank roads.
5. A walkway or short, low footbridge over wet ground constructed with such timbers, made by laying one or more planks or dressed timbers over sills set directly on the ground.

   Synonyms: duck boards, bog boards, bog bridge

6. A short low bridge of similar construction.

   Synonyms: puncheon bridge

7. A cask of a certain size; its volume used as a measure of capacity varying from 72 to 120 gallons.

   Then he went to the scullery, wetted his hands, scooped the last white dough out of the punchion, and dropped it in a baking-tin.

   1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 8, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   Once in the Grenada islands, when I and above eight others were pulling a large boat with two puncheons of water in it, a surf struck us, and drove the boat and all in it about half a stone's throw, among some trees, and above the high water mark.

   1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 6, in The Interesting Narrative, volume I

   Again, by 28 Hen. VIII, cap. 14, it is re-enacted that the tun of wine should contain 252 gallons, a butt of Malmsey 126 gallons, a pipe 126 gallons, a tercian or puncheon 84 gallons, a hogshead 63 gallons, a tierce 41 gallons, a barrel 31.5 gallons, a rundlet 18.5 gallons.

   1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, page 205

   Synonyms: tertian, tercian