different between parcel vs container

English

Etymology

From Middle English parcel, from Old French parcelle (“a small piece or part, a parcel, a particle”), from Vulgar Latin *particella, diminutive of Latin particula (“particle”), diminutive of pars (“part, piece”). Doublet of particle.

Pronunciation

• enPR: pär?-s?l, IPA^(key): /?p??s?l/
  • (General Australian) IPA^(key): [?p?a?.s??]
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): [?p???.s??]
  • (General American) IPA^(key): [?p???.s??]
• Rhymes: -??(r)s?l
• Hyphenation: par?cel

Noun

parcel (plural parcels)

1. A package wrapped for shipment.

   Synonym: package

   • At twilight in the summer […] the mice come out. They […] eat the luncheon crumbs. Mr. Checkly, for instance, always brought his dinner in a paper parcel in his coat-tail pocket, and ate it when so disposed, sprinkling crumbs lavishly […] on the floor.
2. An individual consignment of cargo for shipment, regardless of size and form.
3. A division of land bought and sold as a unit.

   Synonym: plot

4. (obsolete) A group of birds.
5. An indiscriminate or indefinite number, measure, or quantity; a collection; a group.
   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, Act II, Scene 3,^[2]

     […] this youthful parcel

     Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,

   • 1847, Herman Melville, Omoo, Part 2, Chapter 79,^[3]

     […] instead of sitting (as she ought to have done) by her good father and mother, she must needs run up into the gallery, and sit with a parcel of giddy creatures of her own age […]

6. A small amount of food that has been wrapped up, for example a pastry.
7. A portion of anything taken separately; a fragment of a whole; a part.
   • 1731, John Arbuthnot, An essay concerning the nature of aliments, London: J. Tonson, Chapter 4, p. 85,^[4]

     The same Experiments succeed on two Parcels of the White of an Egg […]

   • 1881, John Addington Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy, Volume 5, Part I, New York: Henry Holt, Chapter 1, p. 2,^[5]

     The parcels of the nation adopted different forms of self-government, sought divers foreign alliances.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

• lot
• allotment

Verb

parcel (third-person singular simple present parcels, present participle parceling or parcelling, simple past and past participle parceled or parcelled)

1. To wrap something up into the form of a package.
2. To wrap a strip around the end of a rope.

   Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.

3. To divide and distribute by parts or portions; often with out or into.
   • 1592, William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act II, Scene 2,^[6]

     Their woes are parcell’d, mine are general.

   • 1667, John Dryden, The Indian Emperour, London: H. Herringman, Act I, Scene 2, p. 12,^[7]

     Those ghostly Kings would parcel out my pow’r,

     And all the fatness of my Land devour;

   • 1864, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Aylmer’s Field” in Enoch Arden, etc., London: Edward Moxon, pp. 94-95,^[8]

     Then the great Hall was wholly broken down,

     And the broad woodland parcell’d into farms;

4. To add a parcel or item to; to itemize.
   • c. 1606, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act V, Scene 2,^[9]

     […] that mine own servant should

     Parcel the sum of my disgraces by

     Addition of his envy!

Translations

Adverb

parcel (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Part or half; in part; partially.
   • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, Act II, Scene 1,^[10]

     Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet […]

   • 1826, Walter Scott, Woodstock, or The Cavalier, Chapter 4,^[11]

     […] as the worthy dame was parcel blind and more than parcel deaf, knowledge was excluded by two principal entrances […]

   • 1864, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Aylmer’s Field” in Enoch Arden, etc., London: Edward Moxon, p. 59,^[12]

     here was one [a hut] that, summer-blanch’d,

     Was parcel-bearded with the traveller’s-joy

     In Autumn, parcel ivy-clad;

Further reading

• parcel in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• parcel in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• Placer, carpel, craple, placer

Danish

Etymology

Borrowed from French parcelle (“parcel”), from Latin particula (“particle”), diminutive of pars (“part”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [p???s?l?]

Noun

parcel c (singular definite parcellen, plural indefinite parceller)

1. parcel, lot (subdivided piece of land registred independently in official records)
2. (informal) detached house

   Synonym: parcelhus

Inflection

Portuguese

Noun

parcel m (plural parcéis)

1. a shoal, a sandbank

   Synonyms: vau, vado, baixo, baixio, esparcel, restinga, sirte

English

Etymology

From Middle English conteyner, equivalent to contain +? -er.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /k?n?te?n?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /k?n?te?n?/
• Rhymes: -e?n?(r)

Noun

container (plural containers)

1. Someone who contains; something that contains.
2. An item in which objects, materials or data can be stored or transported.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:container

3. (transport) A very large, typically metal, box used for transporting goods.

   Synonyms: cargo container, shipping container
4. (by extension) Someone who holds people in their seats or in a (reasonably) calm state.
5. (computing) A file format that can hold various types of data.

   Synonym: container format
6. (object-oriented programming) An abstract data type whose instances are collections of other objects.
7. (computing, graphical user interface) Any user interface component that can hold further (child) components.
9. (computing) A bundle consisting of operating system, application code and dependencies to be run sandboxed inside a virtualized environment; (by extension) the environment itself.

   Synonym: software container

Derived terms

Descendants

Translations

Further reading

• container on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• anorectin, cotarnine, crenation, narcotine

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English container.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?n?te?.n?r/
• Hyphenation: con?tai?ner
• Rhymes: -e?n?r

Noun

container m (plural containers, diminutive containertje n)

1. cargo container

   Synonym: vrachtcontainer

2. dumpster or domestic recycling bin, large waste container

   Synonyms: afvalcontainer, vuilcontainer

Derived terms

• afvalcontainer
• containerbegrip
• containerhaven
• containerschip
• vuilcontainer
• vrachtcontainer

French

Etymology

From English container (during the 1920s).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k??.t?.n??/

Noun

container f (plural containers)

1. container

   Synonym: conteneur

Further reading

• “container” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• actionner, connaitre, connaître, encornait, reconnait, reconnaît, renonçait

Italian

Etymology

From English container.

Noun

container m (invariable)

1. (cargo) container (a very large, typically metal, box used for transporting goods)

Derived terms

• containerizzare

Further reading

• container in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Norwegian Bokmål

Alternative forms

• konteiner

Etymology

From English container.

Noun

container m (definite singular containeren, indefinite plural containere, definite plural containerne)

1. a container (large metal box for transporting goods)

Derived terms

• containerhavn
• containerskip

References

• “container” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Alternative forms

• konteinar

Etymology

From English container.

Noun

container m (definite singular containeren, indefinite plural containerar, definite plural containerane)

1. a container (large metal box for transporting goods)

Derived terms

• containerskip

References

• “container” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Portuguese

Noun

container m (plural containers)

1. Alternative spelling of contêiner

Spanish

Etymology

From English container.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kon?teine?/, [kõn??t?ei?.ne?]

Noun

container m (plural containers)

1. container

   Synonym: contenedor

Further reading

• “container” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.

Swedish

Etymology

From English container.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k?n?t?jn?r/

Noun

container c

1. container

Declension