flask
Meanings
- A narrow-necked vessel of metal or glass, used for various purposes; as of sheet metal, to carry gunpowder in; or of wrought iron, to contain quicksilver; or of glass, to heat water in, etc.
- A container used to discreetly carry a small amount of a hard alcoholic beverage; a pocket flask.
- Laboratory glassware used to hold larger volumes than test tubes, normally having a narrow mouth of a standard size which widens to a flat or spherical base.
- A container for holding a casting mold, especially for sand casting molds.
- A bed in a gun carriage.
- A nuclear flask, a large, secure lead-lined container for the transport of nuclear material.
- A small bottle of liquor.
- To invest a denture in a flask so as to produce a sectional mold.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English flask, flaske (“case, cask, keg”), from Old English flasce, flaxe (“bottle, flask”) and Medieval Latin flascō (“bottle”); from Frankish *flaskā; both from Proto-Germanic *flaskǭ (“braid-covered bottle, wicker-enclosed jug”), from Proto-Indo-European *ploḱ-skō (“flat”), or from Proto-Indo-European *pleḱ- (“to weave”). Doublet of fiasco, flacon, and flagon. Related to Dutch fles; also German Low German Flaske, Fless, German Flasche, Danish flaske; also Lithuanian plókščias, Czech ploský, Albanian flashkët. The sense “laboratory glassware” is from Italian fiasco, and the sense “container for holding a casting mold” is from Middle French flasque (“powder flask”), itself from Old Spanish flasco, frasco, both from Late Latin above.