Word.ws English Dictionary

bottle

Syllables: bot·tle/ˈbɒtəl/

More pronunciations (2)Fewer pronunciations

British/ˈbɔtəl/

bottle noun: a container, typically made of glass or plastic and having a tapered neck, used primarily for holding liquids.

bottle: a container, typically made of glass or plastic and having a tapered neck, used primarily for...
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

bottle (plural bottles)

  1. A container, typically made of glass or plastic and having a tapered neck, used primarily for holding liquids.
    • Beer is often sold in bottles.
    • Jack and Gill
      Went up the hill,
      To fetch a bottle of water.1795, Gammer Gurton's Garland, or, The Nursery Parnassus, Stockton: R. Christopher, page 51
  2. The contents of such a container.
    • I only drank a bottle of beer.
  3. A container with a rubber nipple used for giving liquids to infants, a baby bottle.
    • The baby wants a bottle.
    • With Marvin getting older ... and walking now ... I thought it was time to start weaning him off of his bottle.2004 May 3, Tom Armstrong, Marvin (comic)
  4. (UK, 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.
    Synonyms:
    balls, courage, guts, nerve, pluck
  5. (attributive) 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.
  6. (figuratively) Intoxicating liquor; alcohol.
    • to drown one’s troubles in the bottle
    • to hit the bottle

Verb

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.
    • 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.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...
  2. (UK, transitive) To feed (an infant) baby formula.
    • Because of complications she can't breast feed her baby and so she bottles him.
  3. (UK, slang) To refrain from doing (something) at the last moment because of a sudden loss of courage.
    • The rider bottled the big jump.
  4. (UK, slang) To throw away a leading position.
    • Arsenal bottled the Premier League.
  5. (UK, slang) To strike (someone) with a bottle.
    • He was bottled at a nightclub and had to have facial surgery.
  6. (UK, 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. (intransitive) Of pages printed several on a sheet: to rotate slightly when the sheet is folded two or more times.
    • 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.2002, Against the Clock, QuarkXPress 5: Advanced Electronic Documents, page 58

Noun (2)

bottle (plural bottles)

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

Noun (3)

bottle (plural bottles)

  1. (obsolete) A bundle, especially of hay; something tied in a bundle.
    • 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: […]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
    • […]Me-thinkes I haue a great deſire to a bottle of hay: good hay, ſweete hay hath no fellow.c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First...

bottle meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

bottle in Hindi

container
शीशी śīśī, बोतल botal, शीशा śīśā

bottle in Tamil

container
புட்டி puṭṭi

bottle in Marathi

container
बाटली bāṭalī

bottle in Urdu

container
بوتَل botal, شِیشَہ śīśa
More languagesFewer languages
bottle in Bengali
বোতল bōtol
bottle in Telugu
సీసా sīsā
bottle in Malayalam
കുപ്പി kuppi
bottle in Kannada
ಬಾಟಲಿ bāṭali
bottle in Punjabi
ਬੋਤਲ botal, بوتَل botal
bottle in Gujarati
બાટલી bāṭlī
bottle in Odia
ବୋତଲ botala
bottle in Sanskrit
कूपी kūpī
bottle in Sinhala
බෝතලය bōtalaya
bottle in Assamese
বটল botol
bottle in Nepali
बोतल botal
bottle in Pashto
بوتل botal, شيشه šiša
bottle in Tagalog
bote
bottle in Arabic
زُجَاجَة zujāja, قِنِّينَة qinnīna, قزازة ʔezāza, بطل buṭuḷ
bottle in Malay
botol
bottle in Indonesian
botol
bottle in Persian
بوتَل bōtal, شِیشَه šīša, بُطْری botri, شیشِه šiše
bottle in Thai
ขวด kùuat
bottle in Vietnamese
chai
bottle in Myanmar
ပုလင်း pu.lang:
Dzongkha
དམ་སྦྱིས dam sbyis

Examples of bottle in a sentence

  • 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.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VI, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
  • He told me I didn’t have the bottle to take them, so I told him I did and he handed them to me one by one and I swallowed them.2012, Theodore Dalrymple, If Symptoms Persist:
  • See that black boy over there runnin' scared / His ol' man's in a bottle / He done quit his 9 to 5 to drink full time / So now he's livin' in the bottle.1974, Gil Scott-Heron, “The Bottle”, in Winter in America:
  • See, my old man’s got a problem / He live with the bottle, that’s the way it is1988 April 5, Tracy Chapman, “Fast Car”, in Tracy Chapman:

All 40 example sentences with bottle

Synonyms of bottle

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of bottle

Forms of bottle

Noun
pluralbottles
alternative pronunciation-spellingboddle
Verb
third-person singular presentbottles
present participlebottling
past participlebottled
pastbottled

Past tense of bottle: bottled

Plural of bottle: bottles

Origin of bottle

From Middle English botel (“bottle, flask, wineskin”), from Old French boteille, from Late Latin butticula, diminutive of buttis (“cask”). Doublet of botija. Displaced native pinne and non-native Old English ampella. Partially displaced Old English flasce.

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.

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

Words formed from bottle

Phrases with bottle

151 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with bottle

Questions about bottle

What does bottle mean?
Bottle means a container, typically made of glass or plastic and having a tapered neck, used primarily for holding liquids.
What is bottle in Hindi?
Bottle in Hindi is शीशी (śīśī), बोतल (botal), शीशा (śīśā). See Bottle meaning in Hindi.
How do you use bottle in a sentence?
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.
What part of speech is bottle?
Bottle can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce bottle?
Bottle is pronounced /ˈbɒtəl/ (UK).
What is the plural of bottle?
The plural of bottle is bottles.

Words near bottle in the dictionary

  1. botting
  2. Bottini
  3. Bottinis
  4. bottinoite
  5. Bottis
  6. bottle
  7. bottle and glass
  8. bottle away
  9. bottle bank
  10. bottle banks
  11. bottle blond

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bottle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-a bottle.ogg, en-uk-London-bottle.ogg, en-us-bottle.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bottle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bottle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.