Tank

How to spell tank

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce tank

What does tank mean?

1. nounA large container for holding liquid or gas.
2. nounA heavily armoured combat vehicle that moves on continuous tracks.
3. verbTo fail completely or decline sharply, especially in business or performance.

Tank in a sentence

• noun

  The plumber drained the hot water tank before replacing it.

• noun

  The museum displays a restored tank from the Second World War.

• verb

  Sales could tank if the company raises its prices again.

• noun

  We filled the petrol tank before the long drive north.

• noun

  The column of soldiers advanced behind a single tank.

• verb

  Poor reviews can tank a film in its opening weekend.

Where does tank come from?

Language of origin: Other

Tank entered English in the early 1600s through Portuguese traders in India, where 'tanque' described an artificial pool or reservoir. The word was reinforced by, and probably blended with, local Indian words such as Gujarati 'tankh' and Marathi 'tanken', meaning a pond or water cistern, so the spelling settled on the short, blunt 'tank'. For centuries it simply meant a large container for liquid or a man-made reservoir. The famous military meaning is much younger and deliberately misleading: during the First World War the British disguised their new armoured vehicles as mobile water carriers, and the code name 'tank' stuck so firmly that it became the permanent term. The later slang sense of something failing or collapsing draws on the image of a heavy object dropping like a sinking tank.

How the word is built

• single root 'tank' (a container or reservoir); no prefix or suffix