Contain

//kənˈteɪn// verb

verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To hold inside. transitive

    "The brown box contains three stacks of books."

  2. 2
    hold back, as of a danger or an enemy; check the expansion or influence of wordnet
  3. 3
    To include as a part. transitive

    "Most of the meals they offer contain meat."

  4. 4
    lessen the intensity of; temper; hold in restraint; hold or keep within limits wordnet
  5. 5
    To put constraints upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds. transitive

    "I'm so excited, I can hardly contain myself!"

Show 6 more definitions
  1. 6
    include or contain; have as a component wordnet
  2. 7
    To have as an element or subset. transitive

    "A group contains a unique inverse for each of its elements."

  3. 8
    contain or hold; have within wordnet
  4. 9
    To restrain desire; to live in continence or chastity. intransitive, obsolete

    "But if they cannot contain, let them marry."

  5. 10
    be capable of holding or containing wordnet
  6. 11
    be divisible by wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
controlcheckcomprisecomprisecontrolcurb

Example

More examples

"In the English language many words contain letters which are not pronounced."

Etymology

From Middle English, borrowed from Old French contenir, from Latin continēre (“to hold or keep together, comprise, contain”), combined form of con- (“together”) + teneō (“to hold”).

Related phrases

contain multitudescontain oneselfmelanopsin-containing retinal ganglion cellself-containcount tenhas contentshave insidehold withinholding stuffinside somethingkeep inkeep within

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.