bottle
Definitions
General English
Agriculture
- verb to preserve food by heating it inside a glass jar with a suction cap
Food
- noun a narrow-necked container for liquids, made of glass or plastic
- verb to put drink into bottles
Slang
- verb to hit with a bottle. A widespread brawler’s tactic which seems to have become less widespread since the 1960s.
- verb to collect money on behalf of a busker or other street entertainer
Travel
- verb to preserve something by heating it inside a glass jar with a suction cap
Origin & History of “bottle”
Etymologically, a bottle is a small butt, or barrel. The word comes ultimately from medieval Latin butticula, a diminutive form of late Latin buttis ‘cask’ (whence English butt ‘barrel’). It reached English via Old French botele. The 20th-century British colloquial meaning ‘nerve, courage’ comes from rhyming slang bottle and glass ‘class’.
In medieval Latin, a servant who handed wine round at meals and looked after the wine cellar was a buticulārius: hence, via Old French bouteillier and Anglo-Norman buteler, English butler (13th c.).
In medieval Latin, a servant who handed wine round at meals and looked after the wine cellar was a buticulārius: hence, via Old French bouteillier and Anglo-Norman buteler, English butler (13th c.).
