kettle.
A vessel for boiling a liquid or cooking food, usually metal and equipped with a lid.
Meaning & usage
A vessel for boiling a liquid or cooking food, usually metal and equipped with a lid.
To cook pasta, you first need to put the kettle on.
There's a hot kettle of soup on the stove.
The quantity held by a kettle.
A vessel or appliance used to boil water for the preparation of hot beverages and other foodstuffs.
Stick the kettle on and we'll have a nice cup of tea.
A kettle hole, sometimes any pothole.
A group of raptors swirling and spiraling upward as they ride a thermal, especially when migrating.
a kettle of hawks
A steam locomotive.
A kettledrum.
An instance of kettling; a group of protesters or rioters confined in a limited area.
A watch (timepiece).
A bucket for holding a quantity of paint during the painting process.
A type of encirclement.
Ellipsis of kettle of fish.
Well, we're really in a kettle now, aren't we?
Where this word comes from
From Middle English ketel, also chetel, from Old English ċietel (“kettle, cauldron”) and in Middle English possibly influenced by Old Norse ketill and both from Proto-Germanic *katilaz (“kettle, bucket, vessel”), of uncertain origin and formation. Usually regarded as a borrowing of Late Latin catīllus (“small bowl”), diminutive of Latin catinus (“deep bowl, vessel for cooking up or serving food”), however, the word may be Germanic confused with the Latin: compare Old English cete (“cooking pot”), Old High German chezzi (“a kettle, dish, bowl”), Icelandic kati, ketla (“a small boat”). Cognate with West Frisian tsjettel (“kettle”), Dutch ketel (“kettle”), German Kessel (“kettle”), Swedish kittel (“cauldron, kettle”), Gothic 𐌺𐌰𐍄𐌹𐌻𐍃 (katils, “kettle”), Finnish kattila, Polish kocioł (“cauldron”), Czech kotel (“boiler”), Russian котёл (kotjól, “boiler, cauldron”). (watch): Cockney rhyming slang from 'kettle and hob' to 'fob' (fob watch).
To contain demonstrators in a confined area.
Of a boiler: to make a whistling sound like the boiling of a kettle, indicative of various types of fault.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English ketel, also chetel, from Old English ċietel (“kettle, cauldron”) and in Middle English possibly influenced by Old Norse ketill and both from Proto-Germanic *katilaz (“kettle, bucket, vessel”), of uncertain origin and formation. Usually regarded as a borrowing of Late Latin catīllus (“small bowl”), diminutive of Latin catinus (“deep bowl, vessel for cooking up or serving food”), however, the word may be Germanic confused with the Latin: compare Old English cete (“cooking pot”), Old High German chezzi (“a kettle, dish, bowl”), Icelandic kati, ketla (“a small boat”). Cognate with West Frisian tsjettel (“kettle”), Dutch ketel (“kettle”), German Kessel (“kettle”), Swedish kittel (“cauldron, kettle”), Gothic 𐌺𐌰𐍄𐌹𐌻𐍃 (katils, “kettle”), Finnish kattila, Polish kocioł (“cauldron”), Czech kotel (“boiler”), Russian котёл (kotjól, “boiler, cauldron”). (watch): Cockney rhyming slang from 'kettle and hob' to 'fob' (fob watch).
Alternative form of kiddle (“kind of fishweir”).
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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.