Word.ws English Dictionary

cannister

cannister is the obsolete form of canister.

Meaning of canister

Noun

canister (plural canisters)

  1. A cylindrical or rectangular container usually of lightweight metal, plastic, or laminated pasteboard used for holding a dry product (as tea, crackers, flour, matches).
    • Everything a living animal could do to destroy and to desecrate bed and walls had been done. […] A canister of flour from the kitchen had been thrown at the looking-glass and lay like trampled snow over the remains of a decent blue suit with the lining ripped out which lay on top of the ruin of a...1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
  2. Any of various cylindrical metal receptacles usually with a removable close-fitting top.
  3. A special short-range antipersonnel projectile consisting of a casing of light metal, loaded with preformed submissiles such as flechettes or steel balls. The casing is designed to open just beyond the muzzle of the weapon, dispersing the submissiles.
  4. A projectile component containing colored or screening smoke or riot control agent composition.
  5. A component of canister-type protective masks containing a mechanical filter and chemical filling to filter, neutralize and/or absorb toxic chemical, biological and radiological agents.
  6. Part of a windmill that connects the sails to the windshaft.

See all 8 meanings of canister

Forms of cannister

pluralcannisters

Questions about cannister

What is cannister the obsolete form of?
Cannister is the obsolete form of canister.

Words near cannister in the dictionary

  1. cannings
  2. Cannington
  3. canniniform
  4. cannista
  5. cannistas
  6. cannister
  7. cannisters
  8. cannit
  9. cannithrene
  10. cannizzarite
  11. Cannizzaro

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cannister (page history and authors); canister (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.

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