Canister

How to spell canister

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce canister

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does canister mean?

1. nounA small box or cylindrical container, usually metal or plastic, used to hold a dry product, gas, or other material.

Canister in a sentence

• She kept the loose tea in a sealed canister on the shelf.

• The old film canister still held a roll of undeveloped negatives.

Where does canister come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word travels back through Latin to Greek, where kanastron meant a basket woven from reeds. That in turn grew from kanna, the Greek and Latin word for a reed or cane, the same humble plant that gives us the word 'cane'. Latin took the basket sense as canistrum, and English borrowed it in the mid-sixteenth century, at first for a wicker basket used to hold bread or fruit. Over time the material changed: the woven basket gave way to a metal or plastic box for storing tea, flour, film, or gas, but the name stuck. A useful spelling note is that the modern container has nothing to do with the brand 'Canister'; the single n and the -ister ending both echo the original Greek kanastron rather than any English root.

How the word is built

• can- (from kanna: reed/cane)
• -ister (from canistrum: basket)