contain

English

Etymology

From Middle English, borrowed from Old French contenir, from Latin continēre (“to hold or keep together, comprise, contain”), combined form of con- (“together”) + teneō (“to hold”).

Pronunciation
  • enPR: kən-tānʹ, IPA(key): /kənˈteɪn/
  • Audio (CA)(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪn
  • Hyphenation: con‧tain

Verb

contain (third-person singular simple present contains, present participle containing, simple past and past participle contained)

  1. (transitive) To hold inside.
    The brown box contains three stacks of books.
    • 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
      At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors. […] In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.
    • 2013 July 20, “Welcome to the plastisphere”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:
      [The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, […].
  2. (transitive) To include as a part.
    Most of the meals they offer contain meat.
    • 2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884:
      Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.
  3. (transitive) To put constraints upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds.
    I'm so excited, I can hardly contain myself!
    • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act INDUCTION, scene i]:
      Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves.
    • 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:
      [The king's] only Person is oftentimes instead of an Army, to contain the unruly People from a thousand evil Occasions.
    • 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 16:
      Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn.
    • 1988, Lee Mavers, “There She Goes”, in Sixpence None the Richer‎, performed by Sixpence None the Richer, published 1997:
      There she goes / There she goes again / Racing through my brain / And I just can't contain / This feeling that remains
  4. (mathematics, of a set etc., transitive) To have as an element or subset.
    A group contains a unique inverse for each of its elements.
    If that subgraph contains the vertex in question then it must be spanning.
  5. (obsolete, intransitive) To restrain desire; to live in continence or chastity.

Usage notes
  • This is generally a stative verb that rarely takes the continuous inflection. See Category:English stative verbs

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms

Translations
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Further reading

Anagrams
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