noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A tin can (containing two or three quarts) used for taking hot water out of a boiler. dialectal, historical

   "Hurriedly taking off her bodice, she crouched at the boiler while the water ran slowly into her lading-can."

2. 2
   A smaller vessel, often graduated for volume, used by traditional grocers for measuring goods such as sugar or rice from bulk to retailable quantities; a piggin. dialectal, historical

Example

More examples

"Hurriedly taking off her bodice, she crouched at the boiler while the water ran slowly into her lading-can."

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