Other forms: kegs
A keg is a small metal barrel for beer. A keg of lager, tap the keg, keg beer.
In Britain the word carries an argument: keg beer is pasteurised and pushed out by gas, where cask beer finishes fermenting in the container and is pulled by hand, and the campaign for real ale was founded to defend the second. Elsewhere a keg is just a small barrel.
1nounkegA small metal barrel for beer.
“They bought a keg of beer for the party and set it up in the garden.”
keg is a barrel.
Middle English kag comes from Old Norse kaggi, a keg or cask.
Proto-Germanic
*kagô — bush, branch, stalk, stump
Old Norse
kaggi — keg
Middle English
kag
English, today
keg
From Middle English kag, from Old Norse kaggi (“keg”), likely a diminutive of Proto-Germanic kagô (“bush, branch, stalk, stump”). Cognate with Icelandic kaggi (“keg; cask”), Norwegian kagg (“keg”), Swedish kagge (“keg”), Low German kag (“vessel; craft”), Dutch kaag (“vessel; craft”). Compare also English cag and chag. The modern form keg with is due to a dialectal raising of / to before velars (cf. fleg); the expected form is preserved in dialectal, while reflects further raising that occurred in some dialects.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA