Other forms: vats
A vat is a very large open container for liquid. The copper vats along the back wall of a brewery, a vat of dye in a mill, a vat of soup in a hospital kitchen.
Vats are industrial — big enough to climb into, and open at the top, which is what separates a vat from a sealed tank. The usual shape is a vat OF something: a vat of wine, a vat of chemicals, and jokingly a vat of coffee when somebody has had a long night. They belong to the business of making things: brewing, dyeing, tanning, cheese. In capitals it is a different word entirely — VAT is Value Added Tax, the sales tax printed at the bottom of a British receipt, said either as three letters or as one short word.
1nounvatA very large open container for liquid, used in making or storing things.
“The brewery has six copper vats along the back wall.”
2nountax(as VAT) A tax added to the price of goods and services.
“The quoted price includes VAT at twenty percent.”
vat is a large container.
Vat is the same word as the older English fat, meaning vat, vessel or cask, from Old English faet and Proto-Germanic *fata, a vessel, back to a Proto-Indo-European *pod-. What happened next was a dialect swap: the f- form was the standard one, the v- form was regional, and the region won. Dutch vat and German Fass are the same old word still in service.
Proto-Indo-European
*pod- — vessel
Proto-Germanic
*fatą — vessel
Proto-West Germanic
*fat
Old English
fæt — vat, vessel
Middle English
vat
English, today
vat
Built from
Middle English vat, a dialectal variant of fat (“vat, vessel, cask”), from Old English fæt (“vat, vessel”), from Proto-West Germanic fat, from Proto-Germanic fatą (“vessel”), from Proto-Indo-European pod- (“vessel”). Cognate with Scots fat, vat, vautt (“vat, cask, tub”), West Frisian fet, Dutch vat (“barrel, cask, vessel, vat”), German Fass (“barrel, keg, drum, cask, vat”), Danish fad (“saucer, dish”), Swedish fat (“dish, barrel, cask, vat”), Icelandic fat (“dish, saucer”). See Etymology 3 of fat.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA