Receptacles

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Items or containers meant for holding, storing, or managing various substances Objects designed to receive and retain different materials in an organized manner Structures intended to accommodate and support a range of contents securely
2. Devices made to hold or store various objects or materials securely
3. Containers created to gather and keep different contents for organization or transport

Etymology: The Latin word "receptaculum" was a practical one: it named an animal enclosure, a shelter, or a storage vessel, and it is built from "recipere," "to receive back," with the suffix "-culum," which forms nouns for tools and instruments. So a receptacle is, at root, a thing that catches and holds. English took the word from Middle English, which borrowed it through Anglo-Norman and Middle French, where it had already widened beyond physical containers to cover things like a basin of water or a gathering place. The sense of a vessel for holding things stayed central, and that is the sense the plural "receptacles" carries today. The word also has a twin. "Receptaculum" entered English directly from Latin as a separate word, making the pair a doublet: two forms of one Latin source, one arriving through French and one straight from the classical language.

Synonyms: containers, holders, vessels, bins, reservoirs

Antonyms: emptiness, voids, lacking, absence, deprivation