carboy

C3A1R1B3O1Y4
UK/ˈkɑː.bɔɪ/US/ˈkɑɹ.boɪ/

noun

A large, rigid bottle, originally made of glass and mainly used for fermentation, and now commonly made of plastic and used to store liquids.

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UncommonScrabble 13

Meanings

nouncarboy (plural carboys)

plural carboys

  1. A large, rigid bottle, originally made of glass and mainly used for fermentation, and now commonly made of plastic and used to store liquids.

    He ran to his right and another shot came at his legs. It hit the floor and zoomed into a huge carboy of clams that split in half and emptied a hundred shell-fish over the floor.

    1954, Ian Fleming, “Midnight Among The Worms”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 160
    1 more example

    A few of them then boarded her and were busily engaged in what appeared, from my distant position, as the emptying of the contents of various carboys upon the dead bodies of the sailors and over the decks and works of the vessel.

    1912 February–July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Under the Moons of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as “A Fair Captive from the Sky”, in A Princess of Mars, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., October 1917, →OCLC, page 77

    Synonyms: demijohn

verbcarboy (third-person singular simple present carboys, present participle carboying, simple past and past participle carboyed)

present singular third person carboys · participle present carboying · participle past carboyed · past carboyed

  1. transitiveTo bottle in a carboy.

    Juice bottled or carboyed at this high temperature is difficult to cool rapidly because of the danger of breakage of glass.

    1936, New York (State) Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin (issues 658-679, page 14)

Synonyms & antonyms

nounA large, rigid bottle, originally made of glass and mainly used for fermentation, and now commonly made of plastic and used to store liquids.

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Origin

  1. Persianقرابه
  2. Englishcarboy

From Persian قرابه (qarrâbeh, qarrâbah). Doublet of carafe.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

carboy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/carboy

MLA

“carboy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/carboy. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “carboy,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/carboy.

Source: carboy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.