amphora

American  

[am-fer-uh] / ˈæm fər ə /

noun

Greek and Roman Antiquity.

• amphorae,
  plural
• amphoras
  plural

1. a large two-handled storage jar having an oval body, usually tapering to a point at the base, with a pair of handles extending from immediately below the lip to the shoulder: used chiefly for oil, wine, etc., and, set on a foot, as a commemorative vase awarded the victors in contests such as the Panathenaic games.

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amphora British  

/ ˈæmfərə /

noun

1. an ancient Greek or Roman two-handled narrow-necked jar for oil, wine, etc

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• amphoral
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• amphorae
  plural
• amphoras
  plural

Etymology

Origin of amphora

1300–50; Middle English < Latin < Greek amphoreús, equivalent to am ( phi )- amphi- + phoreús bearer (i.e., handle), akin to phérein to bear

Explanation

An amphora is an ancient jar with a long neck and two handles. Some are small like wine bottles, but others are as big as grown men. All of them have oval bodies, skinny necks, and two handles. The amphora was used in ancient Greece and Rome as a type of container for wine or oil. People don’t use them for wine or oil anymore, but you might find a decorative amphora in a fancy house, although you’d most likely see one in an ancient art exhibit at a museum. You can detect the meaning of this word in its two Greek roots, since amph means "on both sides" and phor means "to carry."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

amphora amphorae amphoras

Sometimes, the shapes in “Pluriverse assembly” suggest familiar objects — a simple light bulb, for instance, or a changing typology of ancient Greek vases, like an amphora or an oenochoe jug.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2024

What he does believe is the pottery was producing the jars were most likely to have been used in the vicinity, unlike the imported amphora.

From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2024

Greg could see on his desk a notepad where he had drawn what looked like an amphora with an X over it and written “ick topic pregnancy???”

From Washington Post ● Oct. 26, 2022

The agave is roasted in large adobe ovens, fermented in slightly porous clay pots called amphora, aged in oak, then twice distilled in copper and steel.

From Salon ● Jun. 7, 2022

She stood twenty feet away, holding her ceramic amphora.

From "Blood of Olympus" by Rick Riordan

Another 1st or 2nd Century BC vessel was found north-west of Rome in 2023, again laden with hundreds of amphorae.

From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026

Then all that remains are the fading memories of golden ages—and the broken shards of discarded amphorae.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2025

The analyses detected that these types of pottery, particularly the double-handled amphorae, contained new marked culinary preferences for pig, with dairy products falling into the background.

From Science Daily ● May 21, 2024

Both wine and olive oil, as well as other goods, were usually shipped in amphorae.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

One of these was reserved for the very finest wines, stored in amphorae, great earthenware jars with pointed bases, resting in metal stands.

From "Tiger, Tiger" by Lynne Reid Banks

Javi said he’d affixed ornamental amphoras and delicate clay stars beneath a sweeping arch.

From BBC ● Nov. 8, 2024

Using underwater vacuums to clear out 1.5 meters of sand, they found over 200 amphoras that still contained ingredients from the Mediterranean diet, like fish sauce, and a variety of olives, dates and figs.

From Reuters ● Sep. 22, 2022

Back and forth from Libya to the south, to Sicily and Rome to the east, sail-driven merchant vessels carried olive oil, cheeses, charcuterie and wine often stored in massive terra-cotta amphoras.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 28, 2021

The pots, distant relatives to amphoras and urns, stand on the floor and reach to the viewer’s ribs and higher.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 7, 2019

The first Hellenic sailors had also founded a city here, and the sea had also cast up amphoras, little statues and petrified bits of iron.

From Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) A Novel by Charlotte Brewster Jordan