a large container, as a tub or tank, used for storing or holding liquids.
a wine vat.
Chemistry.
a preparation containing an insoluble dye converted by reduction into a soluble leuco base.
a vessel containing such a preparation.
a large container for holding or storing liquids
chem a preparation of reduced vat dye
before 1100; Middle English (south); Old English fæt vessel; cognate with Old Norse fat vessel, German Fass keg
A vat is a big container for holding liquids. If you're having a big party, your mom may get you to help cook a vat of spaghetti sauce to feed all your hungry relatives. Remember that vat has a short a sound; it rhymes with cat, hat, and sat. Vats are not always food-related. People who make pottery, for example, keep vats of glazes in which they dip their vases and cups in order to color them. No matter what a vat contains, it's often heavy and hard to move.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Behind the glass of a sterile room, two employees in full protective suits could be seen extracting an insulin component from a large vat to send a test sample to a customer.
From Barron's ● Apr. 5, 2026
The justices don’t care what you’re doing out there on the plaza; they are just brains in a vat.
From Slate ● Mar. 4, 2026
The real-estate investor took off her shoes, sanitized her feet and waded into a giant vat filled to the brim with juicy grapes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2025
Now behind the counter where there used to be a vat of loose dirty potatoes sits a neat row of greeting cards, wrapping paper and helium balloons.
From BBC ● Oct. 25, 2024
Suddenly, she remembered the words that appeared over Alfred T. Slipper’s head when he was submerged in the vat of Incandesto!
From "Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures" by Kate DiCamillo
On his second day in the job, Burnham announced his first new measure, cutting the VAT from electricity bills, which the government says will save a typical household about £45 a year.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026
On Tuesday morning the Treasury announced that it would cut, external VAT from domestic electricity bills in the current financial year, knocking an estimated £45 from the typical household's annual bill from the autumn.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
The Manx government said the change would be made in line the island's reciprocal arrangements under the Customs and Excise Agreement, which sees the island maintain the same VAT rates as the United Kingdom.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
A reduction in VAT from 5% to 0% will be applied to domestic electricity bills on the Isle of Man from October, the government has confirmed.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
The VAT has been successful in capturing much of the gray market economy and has developed into a significant and predictable source of revenues for all layers of government.
From The 2008 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency
Vat. ix, and the name of the scribe George occurs in both, but the readings do not agree.
From A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Vol. II. by Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose
Giant, stainless-steel mixing tanks and vats, on their sides, tanning in the Florida sun.
From Slate ● Apr. 20, 2026
He kept saying that our soy sauce couldn’t be made without this storehouse, its earthen walls, earthen floors and wooden vats.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
He’s one of the last brewers to use an ancient method of fermenting in wooden vats.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
Many applications of the technology involve creating entirely new organisms which are contained inside large vats in the production process.
From BBC ● Jan. 14, 2025
The low cement pickle vats silhouetted in the gloom made the factory floor look like an indoor cemetery for the cylindrical dead.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
These whiskies, which used to be called vatted malts, can be wonderful and complex.
From New York Times ● Mar. 16, 2018
I sat by the doors that were slatted And the stuff had a surf like the sea— No vintage was anywhere vatted Too strong for ventripotent me!
From In the Sweet Dry and Dry by Haley, Bart
We sat down, a considerable company, to dinner, most of us fine old vatted English tories of that class which is often so enthusiastic as to be inarticulate.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) by Stevenson, Robert Louis
If you don’t want to taste what you eat, you let ’em hand you a free bottle of pure California claret, vatted on East Houston-st.
From Odd Numbers Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe by Ford, Sewell
Michael was right about that port; there’s old and vatted for you!
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) by Stevenson, Robert Louis
"Here, vatting," he said, "every thing is in it, the certificate of birth, the enlistment paper, the discharge, and the other thing."
From Napoleon and Blucher by Mühlbach, L. (Luise)
Here the moon by night is distilling and vatting mountain dew from which all wild creatures may drink deep without fear of deleterious effects.
From Old Plymouth Trails by Packard, Winthrop
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.
