Meaning
An old small measure and unit of shop trade — used for buying dry goods and provisions in tiny quantities, as in 'a gill of rice' or 'a gill of oil', and historically also a small coin/amount of money. In the days of the old British-Jamaican currency and the corner shop that sold everything by the little, the gill was one of the small measures by which poor people bought exactly what they could afford at a time.
Examples
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Gimme a gill a rice an a gill a sugar.
Give me a small measure of rice and one of sugar.
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Long time, yuh could buy tings by di gill.
Long ago, you could buy things by the gill.
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Just a gill, dat all mi can manage.
Just a small measure, that's all I can afford.
Origin
From English 'gill' (a small measure); an old shop measure and small money amount. See [[quattie]], [[market-day]].
How it’s used
An old small shop measure (and historically a small coin/amount). See [[quattie]], [[market-day]].