colander
Americannoun
-
colanders
plural
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
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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:
A colander or a draining spoon will give you lots of mini-eclipses, with the images projected on to the ground while you stand with your back to the Sun.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
"If you hold the colander to the Sun and you look away from the Sun, protecting your eyes, you can make not just one picture of the Sun but a hundred all at once."
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
Demonstrating the technique in a video on social media, he clutches a blank piece of paper behind the colander he is holding up.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
"The next best thing is a colander," Heymans said - or any household object with small holes.
From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026
When the timer went off for the pasta, I went for the colander, but Grandma stopped me.
From "From the Desk of Zoe Washington" by Janae Marks
People across Kent, Surrey and Sussex brought out solar glasses, improvised pinhole cameras and kitchen colanders to watch the celestial event.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
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
Sometimes I felt like my brain was one of those colanders our housekeeper, Mrs. Ellsworth, used to drain pasta, full of little holes that let all sorts of important things escape without my permission.
From "Glitch" by Laura Martin
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.
