inkwell
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of inkwell
Explanation
An inkwell is a small container that's used to hold ink. In the old days, students would sit at their wooden desks and dip their quill pens into inkwells. In the time before refillable fountain pens — and long before ballpoint pens — anyone who wanted to write in ink needed an inkwell. Every few letters or words, a writer would have to dip their quill into ink. Portable inkwells allowed the ink to travel, and school desks had round indentations where inkwells were kept. These schoolroom inkwells were the first to have this name, because they were recessed like a well, or "dug hole."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The set design is virtually nonexistent — unadorned floors and walls dotted with a harpsichord, some stringed instruments, a fencing sword mount and a table with quills and an inkwell.
From New York Times • Feb. 21, 2022
When modern archaeologists first chanced on a board of Fifty-eight Holes, they mistook it for an inkwell.
From The New Yorker • Mar. 26, 2019
Stars crest the steep fold in space-time before tipping over the edge and sinking into the same inkwell that our ship plunges into, drowning.
From Nature • Nov. 20, 2018
In the center, a yellow, white and red bottle of sweet Anis liquor opens out like a Cubist fan, next to a triangular black inkwell pierced by the blade of a tall purplish pen.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 9, 2016
The mechanical man’s movements were so lifelike that its head even turned toward the inkwell as it dipped the pen for more ink.
From "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.