Cullinder

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

  1. A type of kitchen utensil used for draining liquid from foods like pasta by letting water pass through small holes ; an archaic or variant spelling of the word for a perforated bowl used in cooking
  2. A bowl or vessel with a perforated surface to separate solids from liquids in cooking tasks such as rinsing or draining ; a historical or dialectal form of the term for a strainer
  3. An implement with many small holes for straining or draining foods in culinary use ; an alternate spelling sometimes encountered in older texts for a common kitchen strainer

Etymology: The word "cullinder" is a variant form of "cullender," which is an older English term for what we now commonly call a "colander." This kitchen utensil, used for draining liquids from foods like pasta or washed vegetables, has a history that traces back to the Middle Ages in English culinary contexts. Originally, the term stems from the Old French word "cullier," meaning "to strain" or "to sieve," which itself comes from the Latin "colare," meaning "to strain." The suffix "-er" in English often denotes an agent noun, so the original sense was essentially "a thing that strains." The shift from "cullender" to the modern "colander" reflects changes in pronunciation and spelling that occurred over several centuries, particularly influenced by French and Middle English. Early references to this utensil appear in English cookery texts and household inventories from the 14th and 15th centuries, where it was described as a perforated vessel made from metal or pottery. The spelling "cullinder" would have been one of several variants in use before the standardization of English spelling in later centuries. Its design and function remained relatively consistent, but the word itself evolved as English absorbed influences from Norman French and standardized through printing and dictionaries. Today, the original form has largely fallen out of use, replaced by the more familiar "colander," but "cullinder" remains a window into the linguistic layers of domestic life in medieval and early modern England.

Synonyms: colander, strainer, sieve, filter, drainer