bidons

Noun

bidon (plural bidons)

1. A bottle or flask for holding a beverage such as water or wine; (specifically, sports) a water bottle which can be squeezed to squirt the beverage out of the nozzle, especially (cycling) one designed for mounting on a bicycle.
   • I was awakened by a noise of eating. My protectors, knife in hand, were consuming their meat and bread, occasionally tilting their bidons on high and absorbing the thin streams which spurted therefrom. […] The older [man] appeared pleased with my appetite; his face softened still more, as he...1922, E[dward] E[stlin] Cummings, “A Pilgrim’s Progress”, in The Enormous Room, New York, N.Y.: Boni and Liveright, →OCLC, page 48
2. (archaic) A cup made of wood.
   • ["]Take a draught of my burgundy; bright as rubies. I never sell bad wines;—not I!—I know better than to drink them myself." He started and rose; and before he took the bidon [footnote †: “Little wooden drinking-cup.”], bowed to her, raising his cap with a grave courteous obeisance; a bow that had...1867, Ouida [pseudonym; Maria Louise Ramé], “L’Amie du Drapeau”, in Under Two Flags: A Story of the Household and the Desert. […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, pages 13–14
3. (archaic) An oil drum; a petrol can.
   • I saw that she had picked up an empty oil bidon that had been lying in the corner. I had bought it weeks before, for an oil lamp I had before I sold my things. […] They always make you pay a deposit on the bidon, and you get it back when the bidon is returned. But I'd forgotten all about it. […]...1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XV, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC, pages 115–116

   Synonyms:

   jerrycan