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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

bin.

A box, frame, crib, or enclosed place, used as a storage container.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈbɪn/[ˈbɪn]
  1. A box, frame, crib, or enclosed place, used as a storage container.

    a corn bin
    a wine bin
  2. A container for rubbish or waste.

    a rubbish bin
    a wastepaper bin
  3. Any of the discrete intervals in a histogram, etc

  4. Any of the fixed-size chunks into which airspace is divided for the purposes of radar.

  5. Jail or prison.

    Multicultural-London-English · slang · uncommon
  6. Ellipsis of loony bin (“lunatic asylum”).

    abbreviation · alt-of · ellipsis · slang
  7. A digital file folder for organising media in a non-linear editing program.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English bynne, from Old English binn (“crib, manger”), from Late Latin benna or a Celtic language, possibly Proto-Brythonic *benn (“cart, carriage”) (whence Middle Welsh benn, Old Breton benn (“caisson”), modern Welsh ben), from Proto-Celtic *bend(n)ā (whence Gaulish benna). Compare German Benne (“wheelbarrow”) and Middle Dutch benne (“basket”), whence modern Dutch ben and as a borrowing, West Frisian bin (both "wicker basket").

verb/ˈbɪn/[ˈbɪn]
  1. To dispose of (something) by putting it into a bin, or as if putting it into a bin.

    UK · informal
  2. To throw away, reject, give up.

    UK · informal
  3. To convert continuous data into discrete groups.

  4. To place into a bin for storage.

    transitive
    to bin wine
Where this word comes from

From Middle English bynne, from Old English binn (“crib, manger”), from Late Latin benna or a Celtic language, possibly Proto-Brythonic *benn (“cart, carriage”) (whence Middle Welsh benn, Old Breton benn (“caisson”), modern Welsh ben), from Proto-Celtic *bend(n)ā (whence Gaulish benna). Compare German Benne (“wheelbarrow”) and Middle Dutch benne (“basket”), whence modern Dutch ben and as a borrowing, West Frisian bin (both "wicker basket").

noun/ˈbɪn/[ˈbɪn]
  1. son of; equivalent to Hebrew בן (ben).

Where this word comes from

From Arabic بِن (bin, “son”).

contraction/ˈbɪn/[ˈbɪn]
  1. Contraction of being.

    Internet · abbreviation · alt-of · contraction
Where this word comes from

Contraction of being.

verb/ˈbɪn/[ˈbɪn]
  1. Alternative form of been.

    Internet · alt-of · alternative · dialectal · obsolete
Where this word comes from

Pronunciation spelling of been.

noun/ˈbɪn/[ˈbɪn]
  1. Clipping of binary.

    abbreviation · alt-of · clipping · countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Clipping of binary.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.