What's the Right Word?
Aug. 22nd, 2004 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowA few days ago, I bought a... container of pistachio nuts. (I love pistachios; every so often I spend a few days gorging on them.) I've been staring at the container, trying to figure out what to call it.
It's made of transparent light plastic (not durable; if I dropped it, it might flex or it might burst), with a flimsy plastic lid. It's not quite cylindrical - about 5.5" tall, about 4.5" across at the top but only 3.5" at the bottom. (Technically, it's a frustum of a cone, but let's not go there.) If it were glass, I'd call it a jar; metal would make it a can. If it were more squat in shape, it would be a tub. "Container" is truthful but imprecise. "Barrel" might fit if it were somewhat larger.
Wottinell is this thing?
It's made of transparent light plastic (not durable; if I dropped it, it might flex or it might burst), with a flimsy plastic lid. It's not quite cylindrical - about 5.5" tall, about 4.5" across at the top but only 3.5" at the bottom. (Technically, it's a frustum of a cone, but let's not go there.) If it were glass, I'd call it a jar; metal would make it a can. If it were more squat in shape, it would be a tub. "Container" is truthful but imprecise. "Barrel" might fit if it were somewhat larger.
Wottinell is this thing?
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synonym
Date: 2004-08-23 08:53 am (UTC)In situations where "barrel" has specified cubic volume then "firkin" is similarly specified and would be too big. But if "Barrel" is just sort of the shape then the small version is keg or firkin. However, barrel-shapped sort of implies an oblate shape with diameter increasing from bottom, to a max at mid-height, decreasing at the top to about the same diameter as the bottom. Your frustum shape is not really barrel shaped. (What would a geometer call the oblated cylinder of a "barrel"?)
I think what you're describing is more a "tumbler" -- the flat bottom is smaller than the top, the sides are straight, if tipped it would fall over and roll in a curve -- with a lid.