container

A container is the standard steel box that goods travel the world in. Corrugated sides, doors at one end, and a size every ship and lorry is built to take.

Standardising the box in the 1950s changed global trade more than almost any other invention, because the same box goes from factory to ship to train without being unpacked. That is why they are all the same length and why the ships are called container ships. The word also means anything that holds something, from a jar to a plastic tub. Software borrowed it for a packaged, self-contained application.