Bottle

Bottle (pronounced bot-l)

(1) A portable vessel, usually of plastic or glass (the original containers of this type were of leather) and typically (though by no means exclusively) cylindrical with a narrow neck that can be closed with a cap or cork, for containing liquids

(2) The contents of such a container; as much as such a container contains.

(3) As “the bottle”, a verbal shorthand for alcohol, strong drink, intoxicating beverages; liquor.

(4) To put into or seal in a bottle.

(5) To preserve (usually fruits or vegetables) by heating to a sufficient temperature and then sealing in a jar (not a common use in the US).

1325–1375: From the Middle English botel (bottle, flask, wineskin), from the Anglo-French, from the Old French boteille (the Modern French is bouteille), from botel, from botte (bundle) probably from the Vulgar Latin butticula (literally “a little cask”), the construct being the Late Latin butti(s) (cask) + -cula (ultimately an alternative form of -ulus; added to a noun to form a diminutive of that noun) although etymologists note the origin remains disputed and there may be a Germanic link (although some maintain it was actually from Archaic Greek), possibly with the Low German Buddel and the Old High German būtil, the latter the source for the German Beutel).  The Latin was the source also of the Spanish botella and the Italian bottiglia.  The third-person singular simple present is bottles, the present participle bottling and the simple past & past participle bottled.  The noun plural is bottles.

The borrowings by other languages make an impressive list including the Assamese বটল (botol (which may be via the Portuguese botelha)), the Bengali বোতল (botôl), the Bislama botel, the Cornish botel, the Brunei Malay butul, the Dutch bottel, the Ese butorua, the Fiji Hindi botal, the Gamilaraay baadhal, the Georgian ბოთლი (botli), the Gujarati: બાટલી (bāṭlī), the Hindi: बोतल (botal (which may be via the Portuguese botelha)), the Dari بوتل‎ (bôtal), the Jamaican Creole bokl & bakl, the Kannada: ಬಾಟಲಿ (bāṭali), the Malay & Indonesian botol, the Min Nan 帽突 (bō-tu̍t), the Papiamentu bòter, the Maori pātara, the Marathi: बाटली (bāṭlī), the Nepali बोतल (botal), the Pashto بوتل‎ (botál), the Pennsylvania German Boddel, the Persian بطری‎ (botri), the Punjabi: ਬੋਤਲ (botal), the Samo botolo, the Sranan Tongo batra, the Scottish Gaelic botal, the Shona bhotoro, the Sinhalese: බෝතලය (bōtalaya), the Swahili libhodlela, the Tok Pisin botol, the Welsh potel, the Xhosa ibhotile & imbodlela, the Yiddish: באָטל‎ (botl) and the Zulu bhodlela.

Bottle features much in UK slang.  The phrase “to bottle” refers to (1) a bottle as a weapon (usually involving it either as a blunt instrument or (when broken) as an improvised bladed weapon to slash or stab (“glassing” the equivalent if a glass drinking receptacle is used), (2) to pelt (a musical act on stage, a sporting team on the field of play etc) with bottles as a sign of disapproval, (3) to refrain from doing something at the last moment because of a sudden loss of courage (that use based on the cockney rhyming slang "bottle and glass" (meaning "ass" as an expression of courage or nerve)) or (4) money collected by street entertainers or buskers.  In printing, it can refer to (1) pages printed several on a sheet (to rotate slightly when the sheet is folded two or more times) or (2) as “bottle-arsed”, the old printers' slang for a typeface wider at one end than the other.  Bottle (with variations such as bottle-fed & bottle-baby) is also a general term to reference infants fed from a bottle with baby formula or some milk other than the mother’s natural supply; that from which the infant is fed is the baby-bottle (wholly replacing the suckling-bottle from 1844).  A bottle-neck is any point in a system which is a cause of inefficiency or congestion, based on the idea of the neck of a bottle being the narrowest part and thus establishing the maximum flow-rate; use in this context dates from 1896 in the specific sense of “narrow entrance, spot where traffic becomes congested”, extended to “anything which obstructs a flow” by 1922, the verb in this sense used since 1928.  To “bottle (something) up” is not to deal with problems or emotions; letting something “out of the bottle” is the less common companion term.  Interestingly, the figurative use “bottling-up” in this context is from the 1620s, pre-dating the literal use (putting stuff in bottles for storage) by two decades.  In a variety of forms (“on the bottle”, “hitting the bottle”, “to drown one’s troubles in the bottle” et al), bottle has since the seventeenth century been a generalized reference to alcohol and its (usually excessive) consumption.

Natural red-head Lindsay Lohan during bottle-blonde phase with bottle of Fiji Water.  As a modifier for various hair-colors (though almost always blonde if applied to women and something more youthfully dark with men), “bottle” was a suggestion of the use of dye, bottle-blonde the most frequently used.

First sold in 1996, Fiji Water quickly became a celebrity favorite, many attracted presumably by the claim that, coming from an “ancient artesian aquifer”, it was "Earth's finest water" but it attracted controversy because at the time when the company began shipping to high-income countries what was a high-priced, premium product, almost half the Fijian population lacked access to clean drinking-water (the Fijian government claims fewer than 10% are now so deprived).  Analysis also revealed an extraordinary environmental impact by the time it reached the consumer, more water consumed in the extraction, production and distribution processes to produce one bottle of Fiji Water than was in the delivered product.  A combination of the use of diesel-fueled machinery, plastic packaging and the vast distances over which what is a very heavy product was shipped meant a effective carbon footprint per litre well over a thousand time higher than the safe tap water available just about anywhere it was sold.

A magnetic bottle is a machine created by placing two magnetic mirrors in close proximity; they’re used in experimental physics temporarily to trap charged particles, preferably electrons because they’re lighter than ions, the best known use of the device to isolate high energy particles of plasma in fusion experiments.  A message in a bottle is literally that, a written note placed in a sealed bottle and cast to the ocean currents, hopefully to be found somewhere some day; these may be distress messages requesting rescue or for no particular purpose.  Although long obsolete, a bottle was once also something tied in a bundle, especially (hay), the link being to the Old French botte (bundle).  The zoological term bottle-nose dates from the 1630s, applied to the porpoise from the 1660s although as a general descriptor in engineering and architecture, it’s noted from the 1560s.  The bottle-washer is from 1837, the bottle-shop a surprisingly recent 1929 and the first mechanical bottle-opener was advertised in 1875.  A jar, jug, urn, vial, canteen, carafe, cruet, decanter, ewer, flagon, flask, phial, soldier, dead soldier or vacuum bottle can also be used to store liquids and certain designs of some of these are in some cases classified as bottles but the use is technical and a bottle is usually defined and understood in its most simple and traditional form.  

The UK dialectal use to describe a dwelling, building or house is obsolete.  It was from the Middle English bottle, botel & buttle, from the Old English botl (building, house), from the Proto-West Germanic bōþl, from the Proto-Germanic budlą, buþlą & bōþlą (house, dwelling, farm), from the primitive Indo-European bhow & bow (literally “to swell, grow, thrive, be, live, dwell”).  It was cognate with the North Frisian budel, bodel, bol & boel (dwelling, inheritable property), the Dutch boedel, boel (inheritance, estate), the Danish bol (farm), the Icelandic ból (dwelling, abode, farm, lair) and related to the Old English bytlan (to build).

The anatomy of the bottle

The finish (also called the closure) is the very top where the bottle is sealed with a cork (natural, composite or some alternative) or screw-top cap, the latter increasingly popular but now that the problem of cork taint (caused usually by trichloroanisole (TCA)), appears to have been solved, cork is making something of a comeback, aided perhaps by the tactile experience of opening a bottle with a corkscrew.  Collectively, the finish is made of a lip and collar, the collar the lower part of the finish, below the lip.  Structurally, the finish is all that is above the distinctive upper terminus of the neck, the term “finish” a glassmakers reference to the final process of making a mouth-blown bottle (ie the final step or the "finishing") and it’s sometimes also referred to sometimes as a "top," "lip" or "mouth".  The wrapping (metal or some form of composite) which is applied around the finish is called the capsule.

The bore (also called the aperture, corkage, opening, mouth, orifice or throat) is the opening at the top of the finish from which the bottle's contents are poured.  The relationship between bore & stopper in a bottle is exactly the same as that of cylinder & piston in an internal combustion engine.  The neck is the (almost always) constricted part of a bottle that lies above the shoulder and below the finish.  The sealing surface sits atop the bore and is where the closure and finish mesh to seal the contents inside.  The extreme top portion of the finish (rim) is sometimes referred to as the sealing surface though that is dependent on the type of finish.  It varies with the technology, the sealing surface on a cork finish is primarily the inside of the bore whereas if an external threaded finish combination is used, the rim becomes the sealing surface against which the screw cap twists down and seals.

An embossed bottle.

The shoulder is the portion of the bottle which lies between the point of change in vertical tangency of the body and the base of the neck.  In the design of bottles, the shoulder is the upper of the two transition zones between portions, the other being the heel, the body the part where most of a bottle’s contents are stored.  The body lies between the shoulder and heel (insweep) and it’s on the body that most labels appear.  Some bottles feature an embossing, raised lettering, designs, or graphics on the surface of the bottle that are formed by incising or engraving on the inside mold surface(s).  The embossing was often effected by the use of interchangeable (usually cast-iron) engraved plates which could be swapped in the same bottle mold so runs of different embossing patterns could be applied to the same type bottle.  The use of these transformed the economics of bottle production; simply with a swap of the plate, the same mold could be used to produce scores of unique and individually embossed bottles of the same shape and design.  The plates are collectables and are called "slug plates" by collectors although the industry insists they were for centuries never known as anything but “plates”.  Bottles thus produced are said to have emerged from a "plate mold".  Mold seams are raised lines on the body, shoulder, neck, finish, and/or base of the bottle that are formed where the edges of different mold sections parts came together, some manufacturers preferring "mold line(s)" although in the long history of glass-making, they’ve also been known as "joint-marks" & "parting lines".

Pol Roger Vintage Brut (1947).

The heel (also called the insweep) is the lowest portion of the bottle where the body begins to curve into the base, terminating usually at the resting point of the bottle (ie the extreme outer edge of the base so the heel may be thought of as the transition zone between the horizontal plane of the base and the vertical plane of the body).  Wine aficionados like to call this the "basal edge", a kind of masonic code-word with which they identify each-other.  The base, as the name implies, is the very bottom of the bottle; the surface upon which it stands.  Traditionally, manufacturers’ quoted measurements of a base are of the greatest diameter (round) or greatest width and depth (non-round) and the "resting point" of a bottle is usually the extreme outside edge of the base.  The kick-up (also called the punt or push-up) is the steep rise or pushed-up portion of the base which slightly reduces the internal volume of the bottle.  Originally, kick-ups were included certainly to enhance strength & stability but historians remain divided on whether the shape was crafted to collect any sediment in the liquid.  In the early twentieth century, some US glassmakers called this feature a "shove-up" but the term never caught on.