crate
Americannoun
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crates
plural
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a slatted wooden box or framework for packing, shopping, or storing fruit, furniture, glassware, crockery, etc.
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any completely enclosed boxlike packing or shipping case.
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Informal. something rickety and dilapidated, especially an automobile.
They're still driving around in the old crate they bought 20 years ago.
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a quantity, especially of fruit, that is often packed in a crate approximately 2 × 1 × 1 foot (0.6 × 0.3 × 0.3 meters).
a crate of oranges.
verb (used with object)
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crates,
present (3rd person singular)
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crated,
past participle, past
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crating
present participle
noun
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a fairly large container, usually made of wooden slats or wickerwork, used for packing, storing, or transporting goods
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slang an old car, aeroplane, etc
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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cratefulnoun
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craternoun
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recrateverb (used with object)
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uncrateverb (used with object)
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uncratedadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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cratesimple
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cratessimple
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have cratedperfect
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has cratedperfect
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am cratingprogressive
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are cratingprogressive
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is cratingprogressive
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have been cratingperfect progressive
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has been cratingperfect progressive
Past
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cratedsimple
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had cratedperfect
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was cratingprogressive
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were cratingprogressive
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had been cratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of crate
1350–1400; 1915–20 crate for def. 3; Middle English, obscurely akin to Latin crātis wickerwork, hurdle
Explanation
A crate is a wooden container that's made for transporting or shipping goods. Your uncle might send you a crate of Florida oranges for a Christmas gift. Boxes made of wood that are filled with goods and loaded on trucks, ships, or planes are called crates, and to fill them is also to crate. Groceries are often shipped or delivered in crates, like crates of eggs, milk crates, or a crate of bananas. The amount of some item that fits in one crate is also called a crate — "The market ordered seven crates of ice cream for the Fourth of July weekend."
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 van served ice creams and a pop-up-shop in an oversize metal crate was selling beers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
A plastic crate holds more wood in waiting.
From Salon ● Aug. 11, 2026
Two practice journeys with a textile copy were previously made, to test the route and the crate.
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
Wildlife Officer Cameron Blechert went to the reported location and saw the deer in a dog crate outside a house, according to the news release.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 16, 2026
That’s when I notice a crate, a stepping stone to the top of the wall.
From "Muffled" by Jennifer Gennari
For the 25,000th, someone made a throne of beer crates and sat on it, pint in hand.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
The animals were also transported by lorry in their crates.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
Two weeks later, after packing most of his belongings into U-Haul shipping crates, we left Parkersburg, W.Va., in Steve’s red Volkswagen Golf with two suitcases, one Treeing Walker Coonhound and one Aussie/Chow mix.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2026
At the warehouse in Bangkok's Nonthaburi suburb, the sound of people rummaging through products and plastic crates clattering against shopping carts echoes through the building.
From Barron's ● Jun. 17, 2026
Now alongside the empty milk crates at Mr. P’s, brown paper bags with collars neatly rolled boasted plump strawberries, crimson cherries and Chiquita bananas.
From "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson" by Bette Bao Lord
Staged in Philadelphia by Eleonora Gravagnola, it is set in a modern-day art gallery, where a traveling exhibit is being crated up for transfer to its next location.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2025
At first, Ms. Sheridan crated Nala and left the apartment for a while each day to prepare the dog for their imminent separation.
From New York Times ● May 19, 2022
DOG TENTS: If your four-legged gift recipient isn’t crated, perhaps a dog tent would offer comfort.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 9, 2021
Stuart sat on pallets near a back door of the Capitol, ready to be crated and loaded onto a waiting truck.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 24, 2020
He collected fragments from a pig-size guinea pig, armor plates from a tanklike armadillo, more elephantine bones from elephantine sloths, and crated and shipped them to England.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The workers were responsible for capturing and crating turkeys destined for slaughter, Pennsylvania State Police said Thursday.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 6, 2022
DeJoy, 63, built a fortune by turning a small trucking company into a logistics giant that profited by warehousing and crating cargo and mail for delivery.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2020
One theory holds that reducing stimuli at night might work, but she wasn’t sold on the idea of crating him in the dark for hours.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 19, 2018
Expenses for shows with valuable historical pieces lie in crating, shipping and insurance.
From New York Times ● Aug. 26, 2016
I drew out a design for an A-frame signboard that the boys and I could build with crating scraps and place in front of the store.
From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu
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.
