Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
noun
A small basket or receptacle for collecting and selling fruit, particularly strawberries.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Commonwealth, Ireland, UK
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: crate
noun
a small light basket used as a measure for fruits
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: basket, handbasket
History
Uncertain. First appears in the 1820s. Perhaps a diminutive of pun, a dialect variant of pound, the weight + -et. The suggestion that it is an eponym of Reginald Crundall Punnett (1875–1967), geneticist and grower of strawberries, is not chronologically possible. The suggestion it was an ancestor of his lacks evidence. Very likely to have originated from the french word bannette, wicker basket for bread proofing.
Across languages
10 source translations are retained for this English entry.
