Vials

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Compact containers often employed for containing liquids
2. Narrow bottles generally utilized for the safe storage of various substances
3. Small glass or plastic bottles designed to store liquids or powdered substances securely

Etymology: "Vials" is the plural of "vial", a small glass bottle. The singular goes back through Middle English, where "vial" and "viole" were variant spellings of "fiole" and "phiole", meaning a small bowl or cup for liquids. Those forms in turn descend from the Greek "phiale", a shallow drinking bowl, which is why "vial" and "phial" are doublets: two English words drawn from the same Greek source by different routes. The surprising part is how far the container has shrunk. The original object was a wide, open dish, not a narrow glass tube, and the word spent centuries describing cups and flasks of many shapes before settling on the small bottle we know today. The plural form simply follows the ordinary English pattern of adding "-s" to a noun.

Synonyms: containers, flasks, bottles, tubes, jars

Antonyms: emptiness, void, absence, lack, deprivation