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bottle

BOT-uhl · noun

LatinLate LatinOld FrenchMiddle EnglishEnglish

Origin

English bottle comes from Middle English botel, from Old French boteille, from Late Latin butticula, a diminutive of buttis, meaning 'cask.' So a bottle is literally, at its root, a little cask.

Journey

The word entered English already meaning a container for liquid, and it partially displaced the native Old English word flasce as the everyday term for such a vessel.

Related words

Bottle is a doublet of botija, meaning both descend from the same Latin ancestor, buttis, but arrived in English by different routes.

More words

From Late Latin

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