flask1

[flask, flahsk] /flæsk, flɑsk/
noun
1.
a bottle, usually of glass, having a rounded body and a narrow neck, used especially in laboratory experimentation.
2.
a flat metal or glass bottle for carrying in the pocket:
a flask of brandy.
3.
an iron container for shipping mercury, holding a standard commercial unit of 76 pounds (34 kg).
4.
Metallurgy. a container into which sand is rammed around a pattern to form a mold.
Origin
1375-1425; late Middle English: cask, keg < Anglo-French, Old French flaske < Late Latin flasca, earlier flascō, of uncertain origin; compare Old English flasce, flaxe, Old High German flasca (German flasche); cf. flagon

flask2

[flask, flahsk] /flæsk, flɑsk/
noun, Ordnance
1.
the armored plates making up the sides of a gun-carriage trail.
2.
Obsolete. the bed of a gun carriage.
Origin
1570-80; < dialectal French flasque cheek of a gun carriage < Late Latin flasca flask1
Examples from the web for flask
  • During the interview he was sitting in the studio, sipping liquid morphine from a flask and puffing on a cigarette.
  • And since they're so small, hundreds of millions can fit in a small flask.
  • And be sure to sneak a small flask into your pocket and walk.
  • Patrons tend to order their rum by the flask, along with a bowl of ice and the desired mixer on the side.
  • The driver climbed down from his cab, exhausted by the effort, and took out his hip flask.
  • The substance in the flask seemed to have all the makings of an excellent insecticide.
  • The traditional answer is a hip flask filled with whisky, but feeding my monkey will be so much more civilized with this tiny cup.
  • Only when the bacterial population had vastly increased would the flask begin to glow brightly.
  • My mobile is my place of business, my social network, my entire life folded up into a device the size of a liquor flask.
  • That's because microbes can reproduce several times a day, and a billion of them can fit comfortably in a flask.
British Dictionary definitions for flask

flask

/flɑːsk/
noun
1.
a bottle with a narrow neck, esp used in a laboratory or for wine, oil, etc
2.
Also called hip flask. a small flattened container of glass or metal designed to be carried in a pocket, esp for liquor
3.
See powder flask
4.
a container packed with sand to form a mould in a foundry
5.
See vacuum flask
6.
(engineering) Also called cask, coffin. a container used for transporting irradiated nuclear fuel
Word Origin
C14: from Old French flasque, flaske, from Medieval Latin flasca, flasco, perhaps of Germanic origin; compare Old English flasce, flaxe
Word Origin and History for flask
n.

mid-14c., from Medieval Latin flasco "container, bottle," from Late Latin flasconem "bottle," perhaps from a Germanic source (cf. Old English flasce, Old High German flaska, Middle Dutch flasce, German Flasche "bottle"), and if so, perhaps originally meaning "a bottle plaited round, case bottle" (cf. Old High German flechtan "to weave," Old English fleohtan "to braid, plait"), from Proto-Germanic base *fleh- (see flax).

Another theory traces it to a metathesis of Latin vasculum. "The assumption that the word is of Teut. origin is chronologically legitimate, and presents no difficulty exc. the absence of any satisfactory etymology" [OED].

flask in Science
flask
  (flāsk)   
A rounded container with a long neck, used in laboratories.