carton

[kahr-tn]

noun

1. a cardboard or plastic box used typically for storage or shipping.

2. the amount a carton can hold.

3. the contents of a carton.

4. a cardboardlike substance consisting of chewed plant material often mixed with soil, made by certain insects for building nests.

verb (used with object)

1. to pack in a carton.

   to carton eggs for supermarket sales.

verb (used without object)

1. to make or form cardboard sheets into cartons.

carton

/ ˈkɑːtən /

noun

1. a cardboard box for containing goods

2. a container of waxed paper or plastic in which liquids, such as milk, are sold

3. shooting

   1. a white disc at the centre of a target

   2. a shot that hits this disc

verb

1. to enclose (goods) in a carton

Other Word Forms

• uncartoned adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of carton¹

1780–90; < French < Italian cartone pasteboard; cartoon

Word History and Origins

Origin of carton¹

C19: from French, from Italian cartone pasteboard, from carta _card ¹

Example Sentences

The pickers, many of them also minors, snapped berries from plants and placed them in plastic cartons, eight of them in a cardboard box.

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His nose leads him to a carton of plantains behind the vendor.

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Khoury started hanging out in the brewery when she was 7, folding cartons “and generally staying in other people’s way.”

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A carton serves as an end table and a lawn chair makes no apologies for itself in the living area.

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I’ve been quietly working on this one for months — a small obsession that started as a way to use up a half-empty carton of buttermilk and turned, somehow, into a quest.

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Related Words

• container 
• crate 
• packet