vial

American  

[vahy-uhl, vahyl] / ˈvaɪ əl, vaɪl /

noun

• vials
  plural

1. Also a small container, as of glass, for holding liquids.

   a vial of rare perfume; a vial of medicine.

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verb (used with object)

vialed, vialing, vialled, vialling

1. to put into or keep in a vial.

idioms

1. pour out vials of wrath, to wreak vengeance or express anger.

   In her preface she pours out vials of wrath on her detractors.

vial British  

/ ˈvaɪəl, vaɪl /

noun

1. a less common variant of phial

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• vials
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of vial

1300–50; Middle English viole, variant of fiole phial

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Explanation

The word vial sounds like another word, "vile" (making them homonyms), but they mean completely different things. A vial is just a small glass bottle that contains a chemical or drug. "Vile" is evil. One of the coolest things about the English language is how specific you can get. For example, got a small glass bottle made for carrying chemicals or drugs? There's a word for that! That word is vial. There are bottles for soda and bottles for beer, but if what you're carrying is drugs, chemicals, or similar substances, you're carrying them in a vial.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

vial vials vialed vialled

That would mean each vial somehow vaccinated 2.4 babies, which Yi said would be medically and practically impossible nationwide.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026

So Reavie deputized a friend of a friend in D.C. to dip a vial into the green water and ship it to him overnight.

From Slate ● Jun. 27, 2026

But lead singer Dave Bayley "actually lost" the vial of tears in the capsule and "didn't tell anyone from Nasa".

From BBC ● Apr. 10, 2026

Soon-Shiong also referred to Anktiva as a “single jab,” later adding that it was a “little vial that you inject subcutaneously.”

From Barron's ● Mar. 24, 2026

After repeated badgering by Farmer, Lilly was finally selling it to PIH in Peru for $21 a vial.

From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French

He takes vials from his refrigerator of GHK-Cu, which he tells AFP will give him "beautiful skin", and Retatrutide, which will help him "feel less hungry".

From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026

At facilities in Clifton, N.J., a laboratory table that normally sits empty is stacked six vials high with hundreds of feces samples, and scientists and technicians are working overtime to manage the brown onslaught.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

This can include damage in transport, passing the expiration date, and unused doses from multi-dose vials, but a major factor are failures in the cold chain.

From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026

Some people started asking in meetings why Novo wasn’t using vials, according to former Novo employees.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026

He turned on the lights in the closet and shuffled out into his lab, this time keeping careful track of his vials, bottles, and slides to make sure that nothing got mixed up.

From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston

When the demand for vaccines became an outcry, though, the agency found the money to pay for five million more doses to be vialed.

From New York Times ● Aug. 3, 2022

But by the time the health agency ordered 500,000 doses worth to be vialed on June 10, other countries with outbreaks had submitted their own orders and the earliest delivery date was October.

From New York Times ● Aug. 3, 2022

My vialed water samples are sitting in a tube rack.

From "The Last Cuentista" by Donna Barba Higuera

Little pseudo-scorpions were very abundant, and I could have vialed hundreds.

From Jungle Peace by William Beebe

In fact, his ingenuous enthusiasm for this vialled virility seems for the moment to have swept him off his feet.

From Time Magazine Archive

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Related Words

• bottle
• flask

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