crate

plural crates

1. A large open box or basket, used especially to transport fragile goods.First known use 1680s

   Synonyms: packing case

2. derogatorymildlyslangA vehicle (car, aircraft, spacecraft, etc.) seen as unreliable.

   I will make this box of electronics and computer chips fly like no other spaceship has ever flown. Mission Control wanted to see what this crate could do.

   2010, Gillian Coleby, Knocking on the Moonlit Door, page 99

   1 more example

   They shook the head of the unconscious pilot and when the latter opened his eyes, blinking wildly, the other members of the family lifted up the tail of the overturned crate sufficiently high enough to enable the dazed pilot, after releasing his belt, to fall out of the cockpit head first and disengage himself from the crack-up.

   1936 November, Joseph R. James, “More Gates Air Circus Antics”, in Popular Aviation

   Synonyms: banger, beater, bucket of bolts, bucket of rust, clunker, crock, flivver, gas guzzler

3. computingIn the Rust programming language, a binary or library.

   And Rust never compiles modules separately, even if they're in separate files: when you build a Rust crate, you're recompiling all of its modules.

   2017, Jim Blandy, Jason Orendorff, Programming Rust: Fast, Safe Systems Development, "O'Reilly Media, Inc.", →ISBN, page 166

present singular third person crates · participle present crating · participle past crated · past crated

1. transitiveTo put into a crate.First known use 1871

   He also testified that the reason he crated the one machine and boxed the other was because one machine was stronger and the other frailer, and that made it dangerous to crate it.

   1917, “Edwin B. Stimpson Co. v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co.”, in New York Supplement, volume 164, page 71

   1 more example

   Then, in 1941, decision was reached between the Chungking and American authorities to transport these fossils to the United States for safekeeping, and they were crated and moved to a warehouse in Ch’in-huang-tao, a small port city northeast of Peking, into the custody of the U.S. Marines.

   1968, Kwang-chih Chang, The Archaeology of Ancient China, Yale University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 51

2. transitiveTo keep in a crate.