colander
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of colander
1400–50; late Middle English colyndore, perhaps (with nasalization) < Old Provençal colador < Medieval Latin cōlātōrium, equivalent to Latin cōlā(re) “to strain” (verbal derivative of cōlum strainer) + -tōrium -tory 2
Compare meaning
How does colander compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
Most cooks would agree that a colander is an essential piece of equipment for even the most basic kitchen. It's a bowl, usually made of plastic or metal, with holes in it to allow liquid to drain away from the food. Colanders are used for draining anything — for instance, if you're washing fruit, a colander would make the job quick and easy. If you're cooking pasta, you toss the pasta into a pot of boiling water, then when it's cooked, you pour the contents of the pot through a colander, and what's left behind in the colander, drained and ready to eat, is the pasta.
Vocabulary lists containing colander
Pestle, Sieve, and Whisk: Useful Words for Cooking Tools
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If You Come Softly
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Moon Over Manifest
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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:
And the NHL’s most fearsome netminder suddenly looked as impenetrable as a colander.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 30, 2025
If you don't have access to eclipse glasses, you can create a simple pinhole camera with just two sheets of cardboard or even use a colander to project the Sun's image safely onto the ground.
From BBC ● Mar. 28, 2025
Farther to the east, at one point it seemed as if the Mojave Desert was as hole-pocked as a colander.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 11, 2025
If you don’t have eclipse glasses, you can use an indirect viewing method such as a colander or pinhole projector.
From Salon ● Mar. 27, 2024
Laleh looked up at the sound of her name, and Babou gave her a handful of basil leaves from the colander, wrapped in a damp paper towel.
From "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram
It’s an invitation to all of us: To put on our colanders, take up our kitchen implements and give ourselves over to make-believe.
From New York Times ● Apr. 27, 2023
Aside from looking pretty, the pan has a built-in spoon and spatula rest and has a modular design that lets you nest steamer baskets and colanders.
From Fox News ● Nov. 27, 2021
War-ruined bathhouses are dotted around Aleppo’s Old City, their distinctive domes, punched like colanders with round apertures of colored glass, lying smashed, or looking down on rooms filled with rubble and garbage.
From Reuters ● May 9, 2019
Three professional-grade mixing bowls and two colanders make up this Epicurious set.
From Salon ● Apr. 28, 2019
At times she sat cross-legged, at times with legs splayed, surrounded by an array of colanders and shallow bowls of water in which she immersed her chopped ingredients.
From "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri
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.
