water bottle
1. A vessel of leather or skin used in certain countries, esp. by water-bearers or water-carriers, to convey water for domestic use.
| 1591 Percivall Sp. Dict., Zanges, zagues, water bottle, Lagena, vterculus. 1914 Daily News 9 Mar. 6 A little tip⁓tapping burros..with panniers holding water-bottles, came round to the doors [in Valparaiso]. |
2. A bottle to hold drinking water. a. One placed on the table for use at meals or in a bedroom.
| 1825 T. Hook Sayings Ser. ii. Passion & Princ. vi, The washing-stand [was] soapless, the ewer and water-bottle empty. 1835 Dickens Sk. Boz, Thoughts about People, If he can get it [the newspaper] while he is at dinner, he eats with much greater zest; balancing it against the water-bottle. 1847 C. Brontë J. Eyre xx, He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water bottle on the wash-stand. |
b. A kind of flask used by soldiers and travellers.
| 1889 Rider Haggard Allan's Wife vi, By an afterthought, we filled our water-bottles. 1898 Daily News 8 Mar, 3/2 [The soldiers] will have to carry nothing but their rifles—not even their water bottles. |
3. nonce-use. A bottle filled with water.
| 1766 Smollett Trav. xiii. I. 224 He places them [the cut carnations] in water-bottles,..and they will continue fresh and unfaded, the best part of a month. |
4. = hot-water bottle s.v. hot water 1 b.
| 1840 J. Romilly Diary 31 Dec. (1967) 207 Lodge burnt his leg with a water bottle & laid up. 1905 S. Weyman Starvecrow Farm xxv. 230 That was not the day of bedroom fires, or rubber water-bottles. 1929 W. Faulkner Sound & Fury 334 Dilsey reached the top of the stairs and took the water bottle. ‘I'll fix hit in a minute... I gwine build de fire myself.’ |