tank

 
Pronunciation: /taŋk/

noun

  • 1a large receptacle or storage chamber, especially for liquid or gas.
  • the container holding the fuel supply in a motor vehicle: the trucks all had a full tank of gasoline
  • a receptacle with transparent sides in which to keep fish; an aquarium.
  • Indian & Australian/NZ a reservoir.
  • 2a heavy armoured fighting vehicle carrying guns and moving on a continuous articulated metal track.
  • 4North American informal a cell in a police station or jail.

verb

  • 1 [no object] fill the tank of a vehicle with fuel: the cars stopped to tank up
  • (be/get tanked up) British informal drink heavily; become drunk: they get tanked up before the game
  • 2 [no object] US informal fail completely, especially at great financial cost: the previous movie had tanked at the box office
  • [with object] North American informal (in sport) deliberately lose or fail to finish (a match): the powerful baseliner had tanked the match
  • 3 [with object] informal, chiefly Scottish defeat heavily: Rangers tanked the local side 8-0

Derivatives

tankful

noun (plural tankfuls)

tankless

adjective

Origin:

early 17th century: perhaps from Gujarati tānkũ or Marathi tānkẽ 'underground cistern', from Sanskrit tadāga 'pond', probably influenced by Portuguese tangue 'pond', from Latin stagnum. The military vehicle took its name from the use of tank as a secret code word during manufacture in 1915