''canteen'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

↩ 🔳 🔳 🔳

---

Primary

⁀➴

''canteen'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260125123911-00-⌔

canteen - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

🖼️ ➺

Noun

canteen (plural canteens)

• A water bottle, flask, or other vessel, typically used by a soldier or camper as a bottle for carrying water or liquor for drink.
  • 1862, John Williamson Palmer, Stonewall Jackson’s Way:
    • ✤ Come, stack arms, Men! Pile on the rails; stir up the campfire bright; no matter if the canteen fails, we’ll make a roaring night. Here Shenandoah brawls along, there burly Blue Ridge echoes strong, to swell the Brigade’s rousing song, of “Stonewall Jackson’s Way.”
• A military mess kit.
• A box with compartments for storing eating utensils, silverware etc.
• A temporary or mobile café used in an emergency or on a film location etc.
• A small cafeteria or snack bar, especially one in a military establishment, school, or place of work.
  • ✤ He ordered a salad at the canteen.
  • A cafeteria in a school or place of work.
  • Goods purchased from a prison canteen.
    • ✤ Yeah, I worked that bitch. She was buying me all the canteen I wanted.¹
    • ✤ “Well, le’me give you some advice,” he continued. “If someone offers you some canteen, don’t take it.”
      I instinctively knew what he was warning me against. But I felt slightly disrespected because it wasn’t as if I were a frail young girl who might go out on a date with someone and feel obligated to have sex because the guy had bought me a Happy Meal. The way I saw it, if someone wanted to give me some canteen, I was getting something for nothing!²
    • ✤ Administrative Confinement, sort of like a jail inside the prison, this is for those waiting on disciplinary court for a violation, or under investigation, plus other things. 2 man cells, allowed your tablets, some property, some canteen including food, reading books. 4 hours outside exercise weekly after 30 days.³

Etymology

Borrowed from French cantine, itself borrowed from Italian cantina. Doublet of cantina.

Pronunciation

• enPR: kăn-tēnʹ
  • (UK) IPA: /kænˈtiːn/
  • (US) IPA: /kænˈtin/
    • (US, æ-raising) IPA: [kʰɛə̯nˈtʰin]
• Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (India) IPA: /ˈkæːn.ʈiːn/
• Rhymes: -iːn

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1984 December 29, Mykki Balduff, “Prisons and Roles”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 25, page 6: ↩

2. 2015 November 23, Melvin L. Boone, “Dark Corners”, in Pen America ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

3. 2024 September 11, Jordangander, “More about solitary: I get conflicting results when I look up what modern solitary is like…?”, in r/Prison ‎${}^{[2]}$: ↩

Link to original

Secondary

• • •

---