colander
Americannoun
noun
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
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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.
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
Holding up a colander can also project the partial eclipse onto the ground, as can looking at sunlight dappling through a tree’s leaves, or through your fingers aligned perpendicularly.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 1, 2024
Strain through a colander, saving ½ cup of the cooking liquid, then add the pasta to the saute pan, along with the reserved cooking liquid.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 9, 2024
To get her out from under the colander, Billy had slid a piece of cardboard beneath it, pinching her foot sharply in the process, so that it hurt when she walked.
From "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" by Robert C. O'Brien
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.
