before 900; Middle English ketel < Old Norse ketill ≪ Latin catillus, diminutive of catīnus pot; replacing Old English cetel, cietel ≪ Latin as above; compare German Kessel
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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| capability of a porous rock or sediment to permit the flow of fluids through its pore spaces |
| thin, distinctive stratum useful for stratigraphic correlation |
| kettle (ˈkɛtəl) | |
| —n | |
| 1. | a metal or plastic container with a handle and spout for boiling water |
| 2. | any of various metal containers for heating liquids, cooking fish, etc |
| 3. | a large metal vessel designed to withstand high temperatures, used in various industrial processes such as refining and brewing |
| 4. | short for kettle hole |
| [C13: from Old Norse ketill; related to Old English cietel kettle, Old High German kezzil; all ultimately from Latin catillus a little pot, from catīnus pot] | |
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kettle
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kettle  (kět'l) Pronunciation Key
A steep, bowl-shaped hollow in ground once covered by a glacier. Kettles are believed to form when a block of ice left by a glacier becomes covered by sediments and later melts, leaving a hollow. They are usually tens of meters deep and up to tens of kilometers in diameter and often contain surface water. |
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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Kettle definition
a large pot for cooking. The same Hebrew word (dud, "boiling") is rendered also "pot" (Ps. 81:6), "caldron" (2 Chr. 35:13), "basket" (Jer. 24:2). It was used for preparing the peace-offerings (1 Sam. 2:13, 14).
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kettle
In addition to the idiom beginning with kettle, also see pot calling the kettle black.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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kettle
in geology, depression in a glacial outwash drift made by the melting of a detached mass of glacial ice that became wholly or partly buried. The occurrence of these stranded ice masses is thought to be the result of gradual accumulation of outwash atop the irregular glacier terminus. Kettles may range in size from 5 m (15 feet) to 13 km (8 miles) in diameter and up to 45 m in depth. When filled with water they are called kettle lakes. Most kettles are circular in shape because melting blocks of ice tend to become rounded; distorted or branching depressions may result from extremely irregular ice masses
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