kettle
pronunciation
How to pronounce kettle in British English:
UK [ˈketl]
How to pronounce kettle in American English:
US [ˈketl]
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- Noun:
- a metal pot for stewing or boiling; usually has a lid
- the quantity a kettle will hold
- (geology) a hollow (typically filled by a lake) that results from the melting of a mass of ice trapped in glacial deposits
- a large hemispherical brass or copper percussion instrument with a drumhead that can be tuned by adjusting the tension on it
Word Origin
- kettle
- kettle: [13] Latin catīnus denoted a ‘deep pan or dish in which food was cooked or served’. Its diminutive form catillus was borrowed into prehistoric Germanic as *katilaz, which passed into Old English in the form cetel. This produced Middle English chetel, which died out in the 15th century, having been ousted by the related Old Norse form ketill.Originally the term denoted any metal vessel for boiling liquid, and it is only really in the past century that its meaning has narrowed down to an ‘enclosed pot with a spout’. The original sense lingers on in the term fish kettle, and is still very much alive in related Germanic forms such as German kessel and Swedish kittel.
- kettle (n.)
- Old English cetil (Mercian), from Proto-Germanic *katilaz (compare Old Saxon ketel, Old Frisian zetel, Middle Dutch ketel, Old High German kezzil, German Kessel), probably from Latin catillus "deep pan or dish for cooking," diminutive of catinus "bowl, dish, pot." One of the few Latin loan-words in Proto-Germanic, along with *punda- "measure of weight or money" (see pound (n.1)) and a word relating to "merchant" that yielded cheap (adj.). "[I]t is striking that all have something to do with trade" [Don Ringe, "From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic," Oxford 2006]. Spelling with a -k- (c. 1300) probably is from influence of Old Norse cognate ketill. The smaller sense of "tea-kettle" is attested by 1769.
Example
- 1. I 've turned the kettle on for coffee .
- 2. Preheat the oven to 350f . Set a kettle of water to boil .
- 3. I like tree in springtime with hot sap like kettle rise into every branch .
- 4. I don 't know anyone who would like a bogey green cashmere jumper with a matching kettle and toaster .
- 5. Last month , a beijing court ordered two chinese companies to pay a combined $ 1.3 million in damages to a british manufacturer of electric kettle components .