bottle

noun

1. 1

   A container, typically made of glass or plastic and having a tapered neck, used primarily for holding liquids.

   Beer is often sold in bottles.

   He had one hand on the bounce bottle—and he’d never let go of that since he got back to the table—but he had a handkerchief in the other and was swabbing his deadlights with it.

2. 2

   The contents of such a container.

   I only drank a bottle of beer.

3. 3

   A container with a rubber nipple used for giving liquids to infants, a baby bottle.

   The baby wants a bottle.

   With Marvin getting older ... and walking now ... I thought it was time to start weaning him off of his bottle.

4. 4

   informal(originally bottle and glass as rhyming slang for "arse") Nerve, courage.

   You don’t have the bottle to do that!

   He was going to ask her out, but he lost his bottle when he saw her.

   He told me I didn’t have the bottle to take them, so I told him I did and he handed them to me one by one and I swallowed them.

5. 5

   A container of hair dye, hence with one’s hair color produced by dyeing.

   Did you know he’s a bottle brunette? His natural hair color is strawberry blonde.

6. 6

   figurativeIntoxicating liquor; alcohol.

   to drown one’s troubles in the bottle

   to hit the bottle

   See that black boy over there runnin' scared / His ol' man's in a bottle / He done quit his 9 to 5 to drink full time / So now he's livin' in the bottle.

   See, my old man’s got a problem / He live with the bottle, that’s the way it is

verb

1. 1

   To seal (a liquid) into a bottle for later consumption. Also fig.

   This plant bottles vast quantities of spring water every day.

   The temptation is to regard him [John Ogdon] as an idiot savant, a big talent bottled inside a recalcitrant body and accompanied by a personality that seems not just unremarkable, but almost entirely blank.

2. 2

   To feed (an infant) baby formula.

   Because of complications she can't breast feed her baby and so she bottles him.

3. 3

   slangTo refrain from doing (something) at the last moment because of a sudden loss of courage.

   The rider bottled the big jump.

4. 4

   slangTo throw away a leading position.

   Arsenal bottled the Premier League.

5. 5

   slangTo strike (someone) with a bottle.

   He was bottled at a nightclub and had to have facial surgery.

6. 6

   slangTo pelt (a musical act on stage, etc.) with bottles as a sign of disapproval.

   Meat Loaf was once bottled at Reading Festival.

7. 7

   Of pages printed several on a sheet: to rotate slightly when the sheet is folded two or more times.

   Closely related to creep is the process of bottling. As you may have noticed from your folded sheet of paper, pages don't merely creep when they're folded — they also rotate slightly. This rotation or bottling is caused by the thickness or bulk of the paper.

noun

1. 1

   obsoleteA dwelling; habitation.

2. 2

   A building; house.

noun

1. 1

   obsoleteA bundle, especially of hay; something tied in a bundle.

   I was no ſooner in the middle of the pond, but my horſe vaniſht away, and I ſat vpon a bottle of hey, neuer ſo neare drowning in my life: […]

   […]Me-thinkes I haue a great deſire to a bottle of hay: good hay, ſweete hay hath no fellow.

   Don Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument. / Benedick. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.

   Can you deny that you've been off and on lately between flunkydom and The Cause, like a donkey between two bottles of hay?

Forms

plural

bottles

past tense

bottled

past participle

bottled

present participle

bottling

third person singular

bottles