Vessel

How to spell vessel

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce vessel

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does vessel mean?

1. nounA ship or large boat used for travel or carrying cargo on water.
2. nounA hollow container, such as a jug, bowl, or jar, used to hold liquid.
3. nounA tube in the body that carries fluid such as blood.

Vessel in a sentence

• The fishing vessel returned to harbour before the storm.

• She poured the wine into a tall ceramic vessel.

• The surgeon repaired the damaged blood vessel during the operation.

• Customs officers inspected every vessel entering the port.

• The museum displayed an ancient drinking vessel made of bronze.

• Cold weather can cause a tiny vessel near the skin to constrict.

Where does vessel come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Vessel arrived in English in the early 1300s from Old French vaissel (also spelled vessel), which descended from the Late Latin vascellum, a diminutive of the Latin vas, meaning a container, dish, or duct. The literal sense of vascellum was therefore 'a small vessel' or 'little container', and the word kept that core idea of something that holds a substance. From the basic meaning of a pot or jar, English quickly extended it to a hollow ship that carries cargo and people across water, since a ship is in effect a great container that floats. The same Latin vas also gives us the anatomical 'vessel' for the tubes that carry blood, as well as the medical word 'vascular'. The double final consonant pattern is the trap: many writers want to finish it with -le or to double the s differently, but the standard form keeps a single ending -ssel.

How the word is built

• vas- (Latin vas: container, duct)
• -cellum (diminutive) yielding vascellum, simplified in English to vessel