thermos
noun
a vacuum bottle or similar container lined with an insulating material, such as polystyrene, to keep liquids hot or cold.
Jump To:
-
thermos
-
Thermos
Thermosnouna type of stoppered vacuum flask used to preserve the temperature of its contents See also Dewar flask
thermos
American
[thur-muhs]
/ ˈθɜr məs /
noun
-
thermoses
plural
Thermos
British
/ ˈθɜːməs /
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of thermos
First recorded in 1905–10; formerly a trademark
Explanation
A thermos is a portable container that keeps liquids hot or cold for a long time. When you go ice skating, you may want to bring along a thermos of hot chocolate. Officially, the word Thermos is spelled with a capital T, since like Band-Aid and Kleenex, it's actually a trademarked brand name. Still, it's common to refer to vacuum flasks (even those not made by the Thermos company) generally as thermoses. The very first thermos was made in 1892, and they were produced commercially starting in 1904. In Greek, the word thermos means "hot."
Vocabulary lists containing thermos
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:
In the 1960s and 1970s, he would be up before the sun to pack a thermos of coffee and a camp lunch in one saddle bag and an acrid, tar-like screwworm killer in the other.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
At regular intervals, he poured himself a cup of steaming hot chai from his thermos.
From Slate ● Jan. 3, 2026
The thermos still sells on the Stanley website for $36.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 12, 2024
Find a cafe that will let you bring your own thermos.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2023
The one with the thermos is Max, and the other must be Siunek, and I’m not sure what kind of workers they’re supposed to be.
From "The Light in Hidden Places" by Sharon Cameron
Lucien Greaves, The Satanic Temple's co-founder, arrives with personal security, dressed in black and carrying a Thermos.
From BBC ● May 19, 2023
“If you have not prepared, you don’t have time to fill the Thermos, and there’s no warm water or formula,” she said.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 1, 2022
Each morning he fills a Thermos with decaf and settles into his office in his home in San Bernardino.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2021
But like self-absorbed restaurant owners everywhere, I push for more, hungry for feedback about the roll I selected for the brisket sandwich or the artful saucing of the pasta in her Thermos.
From New York Times ● Sep. 20, 2019
“Total silence,” I vowed, and extra quietly screwed the top back onto the Thermos.
From "Dead End in Norvelt" by Jack Gantos
The thermoses “were a workhorse for the workers,” Boyer said.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 12, 2024
If we’re dealing in clichés, these thermoses belong in the lunchbox of a guy taking a break from the assembly line or in the hands of a construction worker.
From Salon ● Jan. 11, 2024
Then he makes her oatmeal and tea for breakfast, leaving them in thermoses to keep them warm.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 15, 2023
It was a cool fall morning and families sat on blankets or newspapers in the grass, passing around thermoses of tea.
From Slate ● Sep. 20, 2022
It’s a blank, beige kind of conference room, filled with banquet tables, coffee thermoses, fruit baskets, plastic towers of cereal, tiered plate stands, and stainless steel food warmers.
From "The Sea in Winter" by Christine Day
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
