Word.ws English Dictionary

tankard

Syllables: tank·ardUK/ˈtæŋkəd/US/ˈtæŋkɚd/

tankard noun: a large drinking vessel, sometimes of pewter, sometimes with a glass base, with one handle and often a hinged cover.

tankard: a large drinking vessel, sometimes of pewter, sometimes with a glass base, with one handle and...
Image: Ji-Elle, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

tankard (plural tankards)

  1. A large drinking vessel, sometimes of pewter, sometimes with a glass base, with one handle and often a hinged cover.
    • I sure would be much happier with a tankard of mead right about now.
    • It was a miserable evening; outside it was snowing and blowing, and in the squire's parlour the candle burned so dimly that you could scarcely distinguish anything in the room but a clock-case with some Chinese ornaments, a large mirror in an old-fashioned frame, and a silver family tankard.1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 249

tankard meaning in Tamil

tankard in Tamil

மிடாததொட்டி, மேல்மூடியுள்ள பெரிய குடிகலம், மிடாவிலுள்ள பானம், மிடாத்ட்டி கொள்ளுமளவு

Examples of tankard in a sentence

  • […] [Jemima] began filling a number of pewter tankards with some of that home-brewed ale for which “The Fisherman’s Rest” had been famous since the days of King Charles.1905 January 12, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], The Scarlet Pimpernel, popular edition, London: Greening & Co., published 20 March...
  • They were left alone, and Athelny lifted the pewter tankard to his lips.1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:
  • You can feel the squelch of damp soil underfoot, the weight of a tankard in the hand.2026 January 31, Janan Ganesh, “The Hamnet wars”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page...

Forms of tankard

pluraltankards

Origin of tankard

From Middle English tan(c)kard(e), denoting 'a large tub for carrying liquid', perhaps related to Dutch tanckaert, from Middle Dutch tanckaert, meaning the same thing, but of uncertain ultimate origin. The OED suggests an alteration of Medieval Latin *kantard, from Latin cantharus (“tankard”). Klein suggests French tant quart (“as much of a quarter”). Meaning "drinking vessel" is first recorded late 15th century.

Words formed from tankard

Questions about tankard

What does tankard mean?
Tankard means a large drinking vessel, sometimes of pewter, sometimes with a glass base, with one handle and often a hinged cover.
What is tankard in Tamil?
Tankard in Tamil is மிடாததொட்டி, மேல்மூடியுள்ள பெரிய குடிகலம், மிடாவிலுள்ள பானம். See Tankard meaning in Tamil.
How do you use tankard in a sentence?
[…] [Jemima] began filling a number of pewter tankards with some of that home-brewed ale for which “The Fisherman’s Rest” had been famous since the days of King Charles.
What part of speech is tankard?
Tankard is a noun.
How do you pronounce tankard?
Tankard is pronounced /ˈtæŋkɚd/ (US).
What is the plural of tankard?
The plural of tankard is tankards.

Words near tankard in the dictionary

  1. tankage
  2. tankages
  3. tankah
  4. tankahs
  5. tankal
  6. tankard
  7. tankards
  8. tankas
  9. tankbuster
  10. tankbusters
  11. tankbusting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tankard (page history and authors); tankard (Tamil Wiktionary) (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-ca-tankard.oga.

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