Alcohol by volume (abbreviated as
ABV,
abv, or
alc/vol) is a standard measure of how much alcohol (
ethanol) is contained in a given volume of an
alcoholic beverage (expressed as a
volume percent). It is defined as the number of millilitres of pure
ethanol present in 100 millilitres of solution at 20°C. The number of millilitres of pure ethanol is the mass of the ethanol divided by its density at 20°C, which is 0.78924 g/ml. The
ABV standard is used worldwide. The
International Organization of Legal Metrology has tables of density of water–ethanol mixtures at different concentrations and temperatures.