Other forms: vessels
A vessel is a ship, or a container for liquid. A fishing vessel, a glass vessel, blood vessels.
The three senses share the idea of something that holds — a hull holds a crew, a jar holds liquid, a vein holds blood. It is the formal word for a ship, used in law and shipping. The Latin vas means a vessel, and vase is the same word.
1nounshipA ship.
“The fishing vessel was caught in a storm far from the coast.”
2nounvesselA container for liquid.
“The museum displays clay vessels that were once used to store oil and wine.”
vessel is a ship, or a container.
Latin vascellum is a little vas, a vessel or container. Vase and vascular come from the same root.
Middle English
vessel
English, today
vessel
Built from
From Middle English vessel. Middle English vessel, vessell (“small container”); from Old French vaissel (compare modern French vaisseau and Catalan vaixell), from Latin vāscellum, of vāsculum, diminutive of vās (“vase, vessel”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA