Nearby Words

tanks

[tangk] Origin

tank

[tangk]
noun
1.
a large receptacle, container, or structure for holding a liquid or gas: tanks for storing oil.
2.
a natural or artificial pool, pond, or lake.
3.
Military. an armored, self-propelled combat vehicle, armed with cannon and machine guns and moving on a caterpillar tread.
4.
Slang. a prison cell or enclosure for more than one occupant, as for prisoners awaiting a hearing.
verb (used with object)
6.
to put or store in a tank.

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Tanks is always a great word to know.
So is ort. Does it mean:
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.
verb (used without object)
7.
Slang. to do poorly or decline rapidly; fail: The movie tanked at the box office.
8.
tank up,
a.
to fill the gas tank of an automobile or other motor vehicle.
b.
Slang. to drink a great quantity of alcoholic beverage, especially to intoxication.
9.
go in the tank, Boxing Slang. to go through the motions of a match but deliberately lose because of an illicit prearrangement or fix; throw a fight.

Origin:
1610–20; perhaps jointly < Gujarati tānkh reservoir, lake, and Portuguese tanque, contraction of estanque pond, literally, something dammed up, derivative of estancar (< Vulgar Latin *stanticāre) to dam up, weaken; adopted as a cover name for the military vehicle during the early stages of its manufacture in England (December, 1915)

tank·less, adjective
tank·like, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

tank
"to lose or fail," 1976, originally in tennis jargon, but said there to be from boxing, from tank (n.) in some sense. Tanked "drunk" is from 1893.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Slang Dictionary

tank definition


  1. in.
    and tank up. to drink too much beer; to drink to excess. : Let's go out this Friday and tank a while.
  2. n.
    a drunkard. (Usually tank-up.) : You're turning into a real tank, Harry.
  3. n.
    a jail cell for holding drunks. : One night in the tank was enough to make John take the pledge.
  4. tv. & in.
    to lose a game deliberately. : The manager got wind of a plan to tank Friday's game.
  5. in.
    for something to fail. : The entire stock market tanked on Friday.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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