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contain. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
contain, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
contain in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
contain you have here. The definition of the word
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contain, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Etymology
From Middle English, borrowed from Old French contenir, from Latin continēre (“to hold or keep together, comprise, contain”), combined form of con- (“together”) + teneō (“to hold”).
Pronunciation
- enPR: kən-tānʹ, IPA(key): /kənˈteɪn/
- Rhymes: -eɪn
- Hyphenation: con‧tain
Verb
contain (third-person singular simple present contains, present participle containing, simple past and past participle contained)
- (transitive) To hold inside.
The brown box contains three stacks of books.
1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate , New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, , →OCLC:At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors. […] In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.
2013 July 20, “Welcome to the plastisphere”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, […].
- (transitive) To include as a part.
Most of the meals they offer contain meat.
2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884: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.
- (transitive) To put constraints upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds.
I'm so excited, I can hardly contain myself!
c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves.
1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande , Dublin: Societie of Stationers, , →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: Society of Stationers, Hibernia Press, y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:[The king's] only Person is oftentimes instead of an Army, to contain the unruly People from a thousand evil Occasions.
1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate , New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, , →OCLC, page 16:Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn.
- (mathematics, of a set etc., transitive) To 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.
- (obsolete, intransitive) To restrain desire; to live in continence or chastity.
Usage notes
Synonyms
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Translations
Translations to be checked
Further reading
- “contain”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “contain”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “contain”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Anagrams