Vessel

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈvɛs.əl/

Definitions

1. A hollow container used to hold liquids, or a ship or boat used for traveling on water
2. A container typically used for holding liquids, a craft utilized for traveling across water, or a conduit in the body for carrying blood or other fluids
3. A hollow object designed to store liquids ; a watercraft used to journey on seas or rivers ; a channel within living beings that carries blood or fluids

Etymology: The surprising thing about "vessel" is how small it started. Its distant ancestor is the Latin "vās", meaning simply "vase" or "vessel," and English inherited the idea through a chain of diminutives. Latin speakers first made "vāsculum," a little container, and later "vāscellum," an even smaller one. Those forms passed into Old French as "vaissel," which carried the same sense of a humble receptacle. Middle English borrowed "vessel" from that French word, and at first it meant only a small container, a dish or pot for holding things. The sense of a large hollow body suitable for carrying cargo across water came later, so the familiar ship meaning grew out of the older idea of a container. The word thus moved from a dish on a table to a hull on the sea. The body sense followed the same logic. A blood vessel is simply a container that carries fluid, so the anatomical use is a direct extension of the original meaning rather than a separate invention.

Synonyms: container, receptacle, holder, cask, craft

Antonyms: substance, material, matter, content, load