Word.ws English Dictionary

conteyne

conteyne is the obsolete spelling of contain.

Meaning of contain

Verb

contain (third-person singular simple present contains, present participle containing, simple past and past participle contained)

  1. (transitive) To hold inside.
    • The brown box contains three stacks of books.
    Synonyms:
    enclose, inhold
  2. (transitive) To include as a part.
    • Most of the meals they offer contain meat.
  3. (transitive) To put constraints upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds.
    • I'm so excited, I can hardly contain myself!
    Synonyms:
    control
  4. (transitive) To have as an element or subset.
    • A group contains a unique inverse for each of its elements.
  5. (intransitive, obsolete) To restrain desire; to live in continence or chastity.
    • But if they cannot contain, let them marry.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Bible Corinthians/#8 1 Corinthians:8–9

Forms of conteyne

third-person singular presentconteynes
present participleconteyning
past participleconteyned
pastconteyned

Questions about conteyne

What is conteyne the obsolete spelling of?
Conteyne is the obsolete spelling of contain.

Words near conteyne in the dictionary

  1. contextural
  2. contexture
  3. contextured
  4. contextures
  5. contexturing
  6. conteyne
  7. conteyned
  8. conteynes
  9. conteyneth
  10. conteyning
  11. contg.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: conteyne (page history and authors); contain (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: “conteyne.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/conteyne. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.