Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use kettle in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Kettle means a vessel for boiling a liquid or cooking food, usually metal and equipped with a lid. Example: “To cook pasta, you first need to put the kettle on.”

Examples of kettle by meaning

nounA vessel for boiling a liquid or cooking food, usually metal and equipped with a lid.

  • To cook pasta, you first need to put the kettle on.
  • There's a hot kettle of soup on the stove.

nounA vessel or appliance used to boil water for the preparation of hot beverages and other foodstuffs.

  • Stick the kettle on and we'll have a nice cup of tea.

nounA group of raptors swirling and spiraling upward as they ride a thermal, especially when migrating.

  • a kettle of hawks
  • Kettles can consist of thousands of birds migrating together.2010, Jean-Luc E. Cartron, Raptors of New Mexico
  • the "River of Raptors" - an enormous kettle of hawks - circles over Cardel, in Veracruz, Mexico, in early October2012, Pete Dunne, David Sibley, Clay Sutton, Hawks in Flight, HarperCollins

verbTo contain demonstrators in a confined area.

  • This tactic, known as kettling, is seen by some as an attempt to prevent people lawfully demonstrating.2009 April 2, John O'Connor, “G20: The upside of kettling: The Guardian”, in The Guardian
  • A couple of the initial pepper spray incidents went viral on YouTube, one showing very young women screaming hysterically while penned—or is the term for this ‘kettled’?—by bright orange police mesh.2011 October 12, Gregory Djerejian, “This Ain't No Tea Party: A Conservative Defense of Occupy Wall Street”, in The Atlantic

More sentences with kettle

  • She often spoke in idioms, pining for salad days and complaining about pots calling the kettle black.From the entry idiom
  • The element in this electric kettle can heat the water in under a minute.From the entry element
  • I’ll put the kettle on and make us a cup of Rosie Lee.From the entry Rosie Lee
  • The old kettle did duty as a door-stop while we weren't brewing tea.From the entry do duty
  • I’ve just put the kettle on – fancy a cuppa?From the entry cuppa
  • The kettle was kept on the simmer.From the entry simmer
  • I think it's a case of the pot calling the kettle black when she says he is obsessive.From the entry pot calling the kettle black
  • They hermetically sealed the kettles to accelerate the cooking.From the entry hermetically seal
  • A kettle converts water into steam.From the entry convert
  • Water in a sealed kettle was heated to boiling over a fire.2020, John Rocco, How We Got to the Moon, page 29. From the entry aeolipile
  • And it usually comes without a cup, or a kettle, or milk.2016 April 15, Suzy Exposito, “Jamie Lawson on His Earthy Pop Sound, Performing With Ed Sheeran”, in Rolling Stone, New York, N.Y.: Penske…. From the entry kiwi fruit
  • It is used as a kettle addition in conjunction with other post-fermentation bitterings.2013, Encyclopaedia of Brewing. From the entry bittering
  • The Chief told us they contained an oat-like meal, sweet potatoes, and kettle bread.2012, Wayne Hunt, Zack and the Validators: Spirit Bridge, page 117. From the entry oat-like
  • A home from home offering real food, comfortable bedrooms with facilities (TV, radio, kettle, H&C).2005, Bed & Breakfast Stops England, Scotland, Wales & Ireland. From the entry H&C
  • Then, very softly, she says, "I'll stick the kettle on so we can wet our beaks."2005, John Lynch, Tom Water, →ISBN, page 168. From the entry wet one's beak
  • "That's a fine kettle of fish," he exclaimed, then turned to his dinner companion.2004, Ellen Raskin, chapter 13, in The Westing Game. From the entry kettle of fish
  • Carrying the hot water kettle, Mark follows the footpath through the dark camp to the boma.1993, Cordelia Dykes Owens, The Eye of the Elephant, Houghton Mifflin Books, →ISBN, page 91. From the entry boma
  • It swiveled about to face Kerin, scattering sand; it opened fangful jaws and hissed like a kettle.1989, L. Sprague de Camp, The Honorable Barbarian, page 45. From the entry fangful
  • He took the kettle off the fire and mashed the tea.1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Chapter 10”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC. From the entry mash
  • The conveyance of soap to the crutchers from the kettle may be by pump or by gravity.1906, Leebert Lloyd Lamborn, Modern Soaps, Candles and Glycerin: A Practical Manual of Modern Methods of Utilization of Fats and Oils in…. From the entry nigre
  • “I'm chuffed,” she said, putting the kettle on.2014, Colleen McCullough, Bittersweet: A Novel, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 131. From the entry chuffed
  • Men and women laced their arming caps and donned their helmets—tall bassinets, practical kettle hats, or sturdy barbutes.2013, Miles Cameron, The Red Knight, Orbit, →ISBN. From the entry barbute
  • These are our young, screaming out in need, meriting not kettling and reprimands, but job prospects and dignity.2011 October 12, Gregory Djerejian, “This Ain't No Tea Party: A Conservative Defense of Occupy Wall Street”, in The Atlantic. From the entry kettling
  • The resulting impression filled with turbid mash liquor, which was hand-pumped through a tube into a separate kettle.2005, Jeff Sparrow, Wild Brews: Beer Beyond the Influence of Brewer's Yeast, →ISBN. From the entry turbid
  • Hard water buggars up the kettles, coffee makers, heating systems, steam irons, rhododendra (Blue Peters and Blue Admirals too; etc. etc.2005 November 4, Brian Sharrock, “Re: The Myth Of "Suitcase Nukes."”, in alt.history.british (Usenet), message-ID…. From the entry rhododendra
  • Once prepared, the mandoo are cooked to order in a medium-sized kettle for boiling or a wok-like casserole for pan-frying.2003, Daniel Young, The Rough Guide to New York City Restaurants, London: Rough Guides Ltd, →ISBN, page 180. From the entry mandoo
  • Once you've set them (loudest peak to -1.5dBFS) don't adjust them unless the kettle drummer gets a fit of the maddies!2002 June 1, Mike Clayton, “AKG C414B-ULS: Dumb question - which side is the front?”, in rec.audio.pro (Usenet). From the entry maddies
  • When the kettle boiled I put the warm knickies on.1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 2. From the entry knickies
  • In every department store you see newlyweds, their honeymoon tans fading, returning sorbet makers and salad shooters, toasters and tea kettles.1994 September, Cincinnati Magazine, page 38. From the entry salad shooter
  • The Rhapsody owner Steve Szatmari serves up beef goulash in a Hungarian bogracs kettle to Jim Lada and his mother, Helen.1993 December 10, Molly Abraham, “The Rhapsody provides a hearty tasting of Hungarian cuisine”, in Detroit Free Press, volume 163, number…. From the entry bogracs
  • Items seen at the Hardware Trades Fair-saucepans, a kettle, a bread or cake tin, and a nappy pail.1962, Hardware Trade Journal, volume 265, Benn Brothers, page 49. From the entry nappy pail
  • Deposits of the Caribou Hills glaciation only locally retain a distinct hummocky morainal form, with filled kettle depressions and subdued knobs.1953, Geological Survey Circular, The Survey, page 4. From the entry glaciation

Meaning of kettle

  1. noun A vessel for boiling a liquid or cooking food, usually metal and equipped with a lid.
  2. noun The quantity held by a kettle.
  3. noun A vessel or appliance used to boil water for the preparation of hot beverages and other foodstuffs.

Full definition of kettle

Questions about kettle in a sentence

How do you use kettle in a sentence?
Kettle is used as a noun and verb. For example: “To cook pasta, you first need to put the kettle on.”
What is a short sentence with kettle?
“a kettle of hawks”
What does kettle mean?
Kettle means a vessel for boiling a liquid or cooking food, usually metal and equipped with a lid.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kettle (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 kettle in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/kettle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.