phial
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
- phialine adjective
Etymology
Origin of phial
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin phiala saucer < Greek phiálē; replacing Middle English phiole, fiole < Middle French fiole < Latin, as above
Vocabulary lists containing phial
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.
Take human blood, put it in a glass phial and keep it covered in dung for forty days.
From The New Yorker • Jan. 7, 2019
Suddenly, a phial of manna fell to the pavement and broke.
From Salon • Dec. 25, 2018
What he delivered instead was a small, stoppered phial, neatly labelled “Art and Culture/Clement Greenberg/Distillation 1966”.
From The Guardian • Apr. 9, 2016
The experience was certainly straightforward - a welcoming staffer put a soothing warm wrapper on my finger, a pin prick which I hardly felt, and then a small phial of blood filled in a second.
From BBC • Aug. 14, 2014
I sought the key of the side-door in the kitchen; I sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the key and the lock.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
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.
