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''tankard'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250827013833-00-⌔

tankard - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

tankard (plural tankards)

  • A large drinking vessel, sometimes of pewter, sometimes with a glass base, with one handle and often a hinged cover.
    • ✤ I sure would be much happier with a tankard of mead right about now.
    • ✤ It was a miserable evening; outside it was snowing and blowing, and in the squire’s parlour the candle burned so dimly that you could scarcely distinguish anything in the room but a clock-case with some Chinese ornaments, a large mirror in an old-fashioned frame, and a silver family tankard.1
    • ✤ […] [Jemima] began filling a number of pewter tankards with some of that home-brewed ale for which “The Fisherman’s Rest” had been famous since the days of King Charles.2
    • ✤ They were left alone, and Athelny lifted the pewter tankard to his lips. He drank long and deep.3
    • ✤ You can feel the squelch of damp soil underfoot, the weight of a tankard in the hand. Clever of them to get Vermeer to serve as interior set designer.4

Etymology

From Middle English tan(c)kard(e), denoting’a large tub for carrying liquid’, perhaps related to Dutch tanckaert, from Middle Dutch tanckaert, meaning the same thing, but of uncertain ultimate origin. The OED suggests an alteration of Medieval Latin ﹡kantard, from Latin cantharus (“tankard”).5 Klein suggests French tant quart (“as much of a quarter”).6

Meaning “drinking vessel” is first recorded late 15th century.

Pronunciation

  • (General American) IPA: /ˈtæŋkɚd/
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈtæŋkəd/
  • Hyphenation: tank‧ard or tan·kard
  • Audio (Canada): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1886, Peter Christen Asbj&oslash￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 249: ↩

  2. 1905 January 12, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], The Scarlet Pimpernel, popular edition, London: Greening & Co., published 20 March 1912, →OCLC: ↩

  3. 1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC: ↩

  4. 2026 January 31, Janan Ganesh, “The Hamnet wars”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 20: ↩

  5. James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Tankard”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC. ↩

  6. Klein, Dr. Ernest (1966-1967), “tankard”, in A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary Of The English Language ‎, eighth impression, Amsterdam: Elsevier, published 2003, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 744, column 3. ↩

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