Other forms: beakers
A beaker is the straight-sided glass cup with a small lip for pouring that stands on every school science bench. Thick glass, rough marks up the side, a stirring rod leaning in it and something blue in the bottom.
A beaker has no handle and no narrow neck, which is what separates it from a mug and from a flask. Those marks on the side are a guide and nothing more — for a measurement anyone will trust, you pour into a measuring cylinder. In British homes the word does a second job: a beaker is the sturdy plastic cup you hand a child, the one standing by the toothbrushes. Archaeologists use it for the pottery cups buried with people four thousand years ago, which is why the Beaker people are named after their crockery.
1nounbeakerA straight-sided glass cup with a lip for pouring, used in laboratories.
“He poured the solution into a beaker and set it on the hotplate.”
2nountallA tall cup without a handle, especially a plastic one for a child. (British).
“She filled a beaker of water at the sink and carried it upstairs.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
beaker is a piece of laboratory glassware.
Beaker came in with the Vikings: Middle English bekyr, from Old Norse bikarr, 'cup'. Trace it further and it runs through Old Saxon bikeri back to Latin bīcārium, a wine jug, and possibly to Ancient Greek βῖκος, an earthenware wine jar. English ended up taking the same Latin word twice by different roads, so beaker and pitcher are the same word in different clothes.
Ancient Greek
βῖκος — earthenware jug, wine jar
Latin
bīcārium — wine vat, jug
Proto-West Germanic
*bikārī
Old Saxon
bikeri — cup
Old Norse
bikarr — cup
Middle English
bekyr
English, today
beaker
From Middle English bekyr, biker, from Old Norse bikarr (“cup”), from Old Saxon bikeri (“cup”), from Proto-West Germanic bikārī, from Latin bīcārium (“wine vat, jug”), of disputed origin. Possibly from Ancient Greek βῖκος (“earthenware jug, wine jar”), or from Latin bacarium (“wine vat, vase”). Cognate with stq Bieker (“mug, cup, beaker”), Dutch beker (“beaker, cup”), German Becher (“beaker, cup, goblet”), Danish bæger (“beaker”), Italian bicchiere (“cup, glass (for drink)”). a doublet of pitcher.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA