crate

crate

See also: -crate

English

Etymology

From Dutch krat (“crate, large box, basket”), from Middle Dutch cratte (“basketware, mold”), from Old Dutch *kratta, *kratto (“basket”), from Proto-Germanic *kratjô, *krattijô (“basket”), from Proto-Indo-European *gred-, *gre(n)t- (“plaiting, wicker, basket, cradle”), from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to bind, twist, wind”).

Cognate with West Frisian kret (“wheelbarrow”), German Krätze (“basket”), Old English cræt, ceart (“cart, wagon, chariot”), Old Norse kartr (“wagon”), modern English cart. Wider cognates include Sanskrit ग्रन्थ (grantha, “a binding”).

Alternatively from Latin crātis (“wickerwork”), perhaps from the same PIE root.[1]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɹeɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪt

Noun

crate (plural crates)

1. A large open box or basket, used especially to transport fragile goods. [from 1680s]

   Synonym: packing case

2. (slang, mildly derogatory) A vehicle (car, aircraft, spacecraft, etc.) seen as unreliable.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:old car

   • 1936, Joseph R. James, "More Gates Air Circus Antics" (Popular Aviation, November 1936)

     They shook the head of the unconscious pilot and when the latter opened his eyes, blinking wildly, the other members of the family lifted up the tail of the overturned crate sufficiently high enough to enable the dazed pilot, after releasing his belt, to fall out of the cockpit head first and disengage himself from the crack-up.

   • 2010, Gillian Coleby, Knocking on the Moonlit Door (page 99)

     I will make this box of electronics and computer chips fly like no other spaceship has ever flown. Mission Control wanted to see what this crate could do.

3. (programming) In the Rust programming language, a binary or library.
   • 2017, Jim Blandy; Jason Orendorff, Programming Rust: Fast, Safe Systems Development, "O'Reilly Media, Inc.", →ISBN, page 166:

     And Rust never compiles modules separately, even if they're in separate files: when you build a Rust crate, you're recompiling all of its modules.

Derived terms

• bottle crate
• crate-digger
• crate engine
• crate motor
• crate shy of a load
• crate training
• egg-crate
• egg crate
• gestation crate
• milk crate
• veal crate

 

Translations

box or basket

Albanian: arkë (sq) f Arabic: فِنْطَاس‎ m (finṭās) Armenian: please add this translation if you can Azerbaijani: yeşik (az) Bulgarian: ща́йга f (štájga) Chinese: Mandarin: 條板箱／条板箱 (zh) (tiáobǎnxiāng), 板條箱／板条箱 (zh) (bǎntiáoxiāng) Czech: bedna (cs) f Dutch: krat (nl) n Esperanto: please add this translation if you can Finnish: laatikko (fi), kori (fi), sälelaatikko French: caisse (fr) f Georgian: please add this translation if you can German: Kiste (de) f, Kasten (de) m Hebrew: אַרְגָּז‎ (he) m (argáz) Hungarian: rekesz (hu) Indonesian: krat Italian: cesto (it) m Japanese: please add this translation if you can Khmer: please add this translation if you can Kurdish: Northern Kurdish: sindoq (ku) f Macedonian: га́јба f (gájba), са́ндак m (sándak) Maori: kereiti, kereti Mongolian: please add this translation if you can Norwegian: Bokmål: kasse (no) m or f Nynorsk: kasse f Portuguese: engradado (pt) m Romanian: ladă (ro) f Russian: я́щик (ru) m (jáščik), клеть (ru) f (kletʹ), корзи́на (ru) f (korzína) (basket), конте́йнер (ru) m (kontɛ́jner) Scottish Gaelic: cliath-bhogsa f Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: колето n, сандук m Roman: koleto (sh) n, sanduk (sh) m Slovak: debna f, škatuľa f, krabica f, prepravka f Slovene: zaboj m Spanish: jaulón, esqueleto (es), empaque (es), caja (es), guacal (es) m Swahili: sanduku (sw) class ma Swedish: back (sv), packlår c, spjällåda c Thai: ลัง (th) (lang) Vietnamese: két (vi), thùng (vi)

Verb

crate (third-person singular simple present crates, present participle crating, simple past and past participle crated)

1. (transitive) To put into a crate. [from 1871]
   • 1968, Chang, Kwang-chih, The Archaeology of Ancient China‎, Yale University Press, →ISBN, LCCN 68-24780, OCLC 308337, OL 10317597M, page 51:

     Then, in 1941, decision was reached between the Chungking and American authorities to transport these fossils to the United States for safekeeping, and they were crated and moved to a warehouse in Ch’in-huang-tao, a small port city northeast of Peking, into the custody of the U.S. Marines.

2. (transitive) To keep in a crate.

References

1. Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “crate”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Anagrams

• Carte, Cater, Trace, acter, caret, carte, cater, creat, react, recta, reäct, trace

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Latin

Noun

crāte

1. ablative singular of crātis