Vial

How to spell vial

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce vial

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does vial mean?

1. nounA small glass or plastic bottle used to hold a liquid such as a medicine, sample, or perfume.

Vial in a sentence

• The nurse drew the vaccine from a sealed glass vial.

• Each blood sample was sealed in a labelled vial and sent to the lab.

Where does vial come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek phialē, which described a broad, shallow vessel or cup used for drinking and for pouring offerings. Latin took it over as phiala, and it then passed into Old French as fiole, a small bottle, before arriving in Middle English in the 1300s. Along the way the spelling split into two accepted English forms, the older 'phial' that keeps the Greek 'ph' and the streamlined 'vial' that simply writes the sound as it is heard. The meaning narrowed from a wide ceremonial bowl to the small, slim glass container for liquids and medicines that we picture today. Because it sounds exactly like 'vile' and 'viol', the trap is choosing the right one of three homophones rather than the letters themselves.

How the word is built

• vial (a single root, from Greek phialē meaning a broad shallow drinking cup); no separable prefix or suffix