Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use contain in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Contain means to hold inside. Example: “The brown box contains three stacks of books.”

Examples of contain by meaning

verbTo hold inside.

  • The brown box contains three stacks of books.
  • a spray bottle containing water.

verbTo include as a part.

  • Most of the meals they offer contain meat.
  • Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884

verbTo put constraints upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds.

  • I'm so excited, I can hardly contain myself!

verbTo have as an element or subset.

  • A group contains a unique inverse for each of its elements.
  • If that subgraph contains the vertex in question then it must be spanning.

More sentences with contain

  • The Burgess Shale contains fossils of very odd organisms that lived during the Acadian.From the entry Acadian
  • Most websites contain metadata to tell the computer how to lay out the content on the screen.From the entry metadata
  • Umber is a pigment made from clay containing iron and manganese oxide.From the entry pigment
  • The urn containing his ashes was eventually removed to a closet.From the entry ash
  • The state here includes a set containing all names seen so far.From the entry state
  • The paper contains a number of original ideas about color perception.From the entry original
  • By molar fraction, nitric oxide contains equal parts nitrogen and oxygen.From the entry nitrogen
  • By molar fraction, calcium oxide contains equal parts calcium and oxygen.From the entry oxygen
  • The tank contains unfiltered water. You really shouldn't drink from that.From the entry tank
  • Before potato crisps were sold pre-salted each packet would contain a screw of salt.From the entry screw
  • This work is an omnibus containing all books in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past series.From the entry omnibus
  • In order for a suit to be kosher, it cannot contain both wool and linen together.From the entry kosher
  • The website contains fatwas on points of Islamic law that arise in court cases.From the entry fatwa
  • The new medical portal has dozens of topical categories containing links to hundreds of sites.From the entry portal
  • Strawberry Perl contains vendored copies of some CPAN modules, designed to allow them to run on Windows.From the entry vendor
  • We went up to the attic to look for the boxes containing our childhood keepsakes.From the entry attic
  • David equaled the water levels of the bottles, so they now both contain exactly 1 liter.From the entry equal
  • The parse will fail if the program contains an unrecognised keyword.From the entry parse
  • According to an old adage, oysters are best in months containing the letter R.From the entry adage
  • The roll of solicitors contains the names of all admitted solicitors of a jurisdiction.From the entry roll
  • The last panel of a comic strip usually contains a punchline.From the entry panel
  • The weekly email digest contains all the messages exchanged during the past week.From the entry digest
  • The attic contains a remarkable collection of antiques, oddities, and random junk.From the entry collection
  • Even sleazy tactics and his radioactive mouth may not be able to contain this debacle.From the entry radioactive
  • Breaking news may contain incomplete information, factual errors, or poor editing because of a rush to publication.From the entry breaking news
  • The Sacramento River Delta contains dozens of sloughs that are often used for water-skiing and fishing.From the entry slough
  • Synthetic glycine is optically inactive as it contains equal amounts of the d- and l- form.From the entry inactive
  • Readers are to be warned that quotations in this chapter contain some not so savory language.From the entry savory
  • This box contained rat poison, now it contains a dead rat.From the entry contained
  • Muscles contain many mitochondria so that they can have large energy supplies.From the entry mitochondria
  • The pyramids at Giza are flanked by large cemeteries containing hundreds of mastabas.From the entry mastaba
  • The audience could not contain their laughter while the manualist played on.From the entry manualist
  • If your password contains a particular string of letters, entering it can lock up the login form.From the entry lock up

Meaning of contain

  1. verb To hold inside.
  2. verb To include as a part.
  3. verb To put constraints upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds.

Full definition of contain

Questions about contain in a sentence

How do you use contain in a sentence?
Contain is used as a verb. For example: “The brown box contains three stacks of books.”
What is a short sentence with contain?
“a spray bottle containing water.”
What does contain mean?
Contain means to hold inside.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: contain (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use contain in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/contain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.