contain
pronunciation
How to pronounce contain in British English:
UK 
How to pronounce contain in American English:
US
Word Origin
- contain
- contain: [13] Contain comes ultimately from Latin tenēre ‘hold’, source of a wide range of English words from abstain to tenor. In the case of contain the immediate ancestor, via Old French contenir, is Latin continēre ‘hold together, enclose, contain’, a compound formed with the prefix com- ‘together’. Contain still adheres fairly closely to the meaning of its Latin original, but other descendants, such as content, continent, continue, and countenance, have branched out a lot semantically.=> abstain, content, continent, continue, countenance, retain, sustain, tenor
- contain (v.)
- late 13c., from Old French contein-, stem of contenir, from Latin continere (transitive) "to hold together, enclose," from com- "together" (see com-) + tenere "to hold" (see tenet). Related: Containable.
Example
- 1. Some lipsticks contain fish scales .
- 2. Which products contain saturated fats ?
- 3. Dyes can contain heavy metals .
- 4. The idea was to help businesses contain costs .
- 5. The aim is to constrain rather than contain china .