bottle

plural bottles · alternative pronunciation spelling boddle

1. A container, typically made of glass or plastic and having a tapered neck, used primarily for holding liquids.

   Beer is often sold in bottles.

   2 more examples

   Jack and Gill Went up the hill, To fetch a bottle of water.

   1795, Gammer Gurton's Garland, or, The Nursery Parnassus, Stockton: R. Christopher, page 51

   He had one hand on the bounce bottle—and he’d never let go of that since he got back to the table—but he had a handkerchief in the other and was swabbing his deadlights with it.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VI, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

2. The contents of such a container.

   I only drank a bottle of beer.

3. A container with a rubber nipple used for giving liquids to infants, a baby bottle.

   The baby wants a bottle.

   1 more example

   With Marvin getting older ... and walking now ... I thought it was time to start weaning him off of his bottle.

   2004 May 3, Tom Armstrong, Marvin (comic)

4. UKinformal(originally bottle and glass as rhyming slang for "arse") Nerve, courage.

   You don’t have the bottle to do that!

   2 more examples

   He was going to ask her out, but he lost his bottle when he saw her.

   He told me I didn’t have the bottle to take them, so I told him I did and he handed them to me one by one and I swallowed them.

   2012, Theodore Dalrymple, If Symptoms Persist

   Synonyms: balls, courage, guts, nerve, pluck

5. attributiveA container of hair dye, hence with one’s hair color produced by dyeing.

   Did you know he’s a bottle brunette? His natural hair color is strawberry blonde.

6. figurativelyIntoxicating liquor; alcohol.

   to hit the bottle

   3 more examples

   to drown one’s troubles in the bottle

   See that black boy over there runnin' scared / His ol' man's in a bottle / He done quit his 9 to 5 to drink full time / So now he's livin' in the bottle.

   1974, Gil Scott-Heron, “The Bottle”, in Winter in America

   See, my old man’s got a problem / He live with the bottle, that’s the way it is

   1988 April 5, Tracy Chapman, “Fast Car”, in Tracy Chapman

present singular third person bottles · participle present bottling · participle past bottled · past bottled · alternative pronunciation spelling boddle

1. transitiveTo seal (a liquid) into a bottle for later consumption. Also fig.

   This plant bottles vast quantities of spring water every day.

   1 more example

   The temptation is to regard him [John Ogdon] as an idiot savant, a big talent bottled inside a recalcitrant body and accompanied by a personality that seems not just unremarkable, but almost entirely blank.

   2014 May 11, Ivan Hewett, “Piano Man: a Life of John Ogdon by Charles Beauclerk, review: A new biography of the great British pianist whose own genius destroyed him [print version: A colossus off-key, 10 May 2014, p. R27]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)

2. UKtransitiveTo feed (an infant) baby formula.

   Because of complications she can't breast feed her baby and so she bottles him.

3. UKslangTo refrain from doing (something) at the last moment because of a sudden loss of courage.

   The rider bottled the big jump.

4. UKslanghobbiesTo throw away a leading position.

   Arsenal bottled the Premier League.

5. UKslangTo strike (someone) with a bottle.

   He was bottled at a nightclub and had to have facial surgery.

6. UKslangTo pelt (a musical act on stage, etc.) with bottles as a sign of disapproval.

   Meat Loaf was once bottled at Reading Festival.

7. intransitivemediaOf pages printed several on a sheet: to rotate slightly when the sheet is folded two or more times.

   Closely related to creep is the process of bottling. As you may have noticed from your folded sheet of paper, pages don't merely creep when they're folded — they also rotate slightly. This rotation or bottling is caused by the thickness or bulk of the paper.

   2002, Against the Clock, QuarkXPress 5: Advanced Electronic Documents, page 58

plural bottles · alternative pronunciation spelling boddle

1. UKdialectalobsoleteA dwelling; habitation.
2. UKdialectalA building; house.

plural bottles · alternative pronunciation spelling boddle

1. obsoleteA bundle, especially of hay; something tied in a bundle.

   […]Me-thinkes I haue a great deſire to a bottle of hay: good hay, ſweete hay hath no fellow.

   c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i], page 157, column 1

   3 more examples

   I was no ſooner in the middle of the pond, but my horſe vaniſht away, and I ſat vpon a bottle of hey, neuer ſo neare drowning in my life: […]

   1589–1592 (date written), Ch[ristopher] Marl[owe], The Tragicall History of D. Faustus. […], London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Thomas Bushell, published 1604, →OCLC, signature E2, recto

   Don Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument. / Benedick. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.

   1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

   Can you deny that you've been off and on lately between flunkydom and The Cause, like a donkey between two bottles of hay?

   1850, [Charles Kingsley], Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC