can opener
noun
a manual device or small electric appliance for opening cans.
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can opener
Americannoun
-
can openers
plural
can-opener
British
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of can opener
First recorded in 1865–70
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.
See Examples For:
One character, for reasons you’ll observe, wordlessly switches from soup cans that require them to use a can opener to ones with a pull tab.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2025
Page count-wise, it looks less like "War and Peace" and more like a user manual for a can opener.
From Salon ● Mar. 28, 2024
His AK-47 is slung over his shoulder; on his body armour hangs a spoon, a can opener, and a small pair of pliers.
From BBC ● Mar. 23, 2023
When I used to volunteer at food banks, when someone came in who was unhoused, we would pick out foods that were nonperishable, didn’t have to be cooked, and didn’t require a can opener.
From Seattle Times ● May 9, 2022
All remaining cans of food and a can opener, two forks.
From "The Dead and the Gone" by Susan Beth Pfeffer
The can-opener now is access to locked doors of knowledge and services.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2025
It does not, sadly, demolish the can-opener theory.
From Slate ● Dec. 7, 2018
Still, at least the thing exists — in a weird quirk of history, the can-opener wasn’t invented until 1870, a lengthy 48 years after the can itself.
From Time ● Jun. 15, 2016
But inexplicably - well, maybe not, he’s a young man - Alli tries to play a can-opener of a pass down the middle for Kane.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 16, 2016
Thrust through holes in his ears were a can-opener, the broken handle of a tooth-brush, a clay pipe, the brass wheel of an alarm clock, and several Winchester rifle cartridges.
From Great Sea Stories by Joseph Lewis French
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.
