bottle

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈbɒt.əl/

  • Audio (Received Pronunciation); “a bottle” [əˈbɔtɫ̩]:

    (file)

  • Audio (Cockney); [ˈbɒ.ʔɫʷ]:

    (file)

• (General American, Canada) enPR: bŏtʹəl, IPA^(key): /ˈbɑ.təl/

  • Audio (US); [ˈb̥ɑɾɫ̩]:

    (file)

  • Audio (Canada); [ˈbɑɾɫ̩]:

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒtəl
• Hyphenation: bot‧tle

From Middle English botel (“bottle, flask, wineskin”), from Old French boteille, from Late Latin butticula, diminutive of buttis (“cask”). Doublet of botija.

Displaced native Old English ampella and pinne. Broadly overtook Old English flasce.

bottle (plural bottles)

2. A container, typically made of glass or plastic and having a tapered neck, used primarily for holding liquids.

   Beer is often sold in bottles.

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VI, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     He had one hand on the bounce bottle—and he’d never let go of that since he got back to the table—but he had a handkerchief in the other and was swabbing his deadlights with it.

3. The contents of such a container.

   I only drank a bottle of beer.

4. A container with a rubber nipple used for giving liquids to infants, a baby bottle.

   The baby wants a bottle.

   • 2004 May 3, Tom Armstrong, Marvin (comic):

     With Marvin getting older ... and walking now ... I thought it was time to start weaning him off of his bottle.

5. (British, informal) (originally "bottle and glass" as rhyming slang for "arse") Nerve, courage.

   You don’t have the bottle to do that!

   He was going to ask her out, but he lost his bottle when he saw her.

6. (attributive, of a person with a particular hair color) A container of hair dye, hence with one’s hair color produced by dyeing.

   Did you know he’s a bottle brunette? His natural hair color is strawberry blonde.

7. (figurative) Intoxicating liquor; alcohol.

   to drown one’s troubles in the bottle

   to hit the bottle

   • 1988 April 5, Tracy Chapman (lyrics and music), “Fast Car”, in Tracy Chapman:

     See, my old man’s got a problem / He live with the bottle, that’s the way it is

• (for feeding babies): baby's bottle, feeding bottle, nursing bottle (US)
• (courage): balls, courage, guts, nerve, pluck

• (antonym(s) of “courage”): cowardice

• butler
• butt (large cask)

• Bislama: botel
• Jamaican Creole: bokl, bakl
• Sranan Tongo: batra
  • Aukan: bataa
  • → Kari'na: patere
• Tok Pisin: botol

Borrowings

• 🍼
• flagon
• flask
• jar

bottle (third-person singular simple present bottles, present participle bottling, simple past and past participle bottled)

1. (transitive) To seal (a liquid) into a bottle for later consumption. Also fig.

   This plant bottles vast quantities of spring water every day.

   • 2014 May 11, Ivan Hewett, “Piano Man: a Life of John Ogdon by Charles Beauclerk, review: A new biography of the great British pianist whose own genius destroyed him [print version: A colossus off-key, 10 May 2014, p. R27]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)‎^[1]:

     The temptation is to regard him [John Ogdon] as an idiot savant, a big talent bottled inside a recalcitrant body and accompanied by a personality that seems not just unremarkable, but almost entirely blank.

2. (transitive, British) To feed (an infant) baby formula.

   Because of complications she can't breast feed her baby and so she bottles him.

3. (British, slang) To refrain from doing (something) at the last moment because of a sudden loss of courage.

   The rider bottled the big jump.

4. (British, slang, sports) To throw away a leading position.

   Arsenal bottled the Premier League.

5. (British, slang) To strike (someone) with a bottle.

   He was bottled at a nightclub and had to have facial surgery.

6. (British, slang) To pelt (a musical act on stage, etc.) with bottles as a sign of disapproval.

   Meat Loaf was once bottled at Reading Festival.

7. (printing, intransitive) Of pages printed several on a sheet: to rotate slightly when the sheet is folded two or more times.
   • 2002, Against the Clock, QuarkXPress 5: Advanced Electronic Documents, page 58:

     Closely related to creep is the process of bottling. As you may have noticed from your folded sheet of paper, pages don't merely creep when they're folded — they also rotate slightly. This rotation or bottling is caused by the thickness or bulk of the paper.

• bottle away
• bottle down
• bottle it
• bottle off
• bottle out
• bottle up
• bottleable
• bottling
• rebottle
• your blood's worth bottling

• “bottle”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. (premium)

From Middle English bottle, botel, buttle, from Old English botl (“building, house”), from Proto-West Germanic *bōþl, from Proto-Germanic *budlą, *buþlą, *bōþlą (“house, dwelling, farm”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰōw- (literally “to swell, grow, thrive, be, live, dwell”).

Cognate with North Frisian budel, bodel, bol, boel (“dwelling, inheritable property”), Dutch boedel, boel (“inheritance, estate”), Danish bol (“farm”), Icelandic ból (“dwelling, abode, farm, lair”). Related to Old English bytlan (“to build”). More at build.

bottle (plural bottles)

1. (UK, dialectal or obsolete) A dwelling; habitation.
2. (UK, dialectal) A building; house.

From Middle English botel (“bundle (of hay)”), from Old French botel, ultimately related to modern French botte (“bundle”).

bottle (plural bottles)

1. (obsolete) A bundle, especially of hay; something tied in a bundle.
   • 1589–1592 (date written), Ch[ristopher] Marl[owe], The Tragicall History of D. Faustus. […], London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Thomas Bushell, published 1604, →OCLC, signature E2, recto:

     I was no ſooner in the middle of the pond, but my horſe vaniſht away, and I ſat vpon a bottle of hey, neuer ſo neare drowning in my life: […]

   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     Don Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument. / Benedick. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.

   • 1850, [Charles Kingsley], Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC:

     Can you deny that you've been off and on lately between flunkydom and The Cause, like a donkey between two bottles of hay?

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:bottle.