Other forms: vials
A vial is a very small bottle for medicine or samples. A glass vial, a vial of blood, seal the vial.
Vaccine vials often hold several doses, which is why opening one starts a clock and why doses are wasted when clinics are quiet. The word is a variant of phial and the two are pronounced the same. It comes through Old French from a Greek word for a flask.
1nounvialA very small bottle for medicine or samples.
“The nurse took a small vial of blood for testing.”
vial is a bottle.
A variant of phial, from Old French fiole, from Latin phiala, from Greek phiale, a broad flat vessel.
Middle English
vial
English, today
vial
Built from
From Middle English vial, viole, a variant of fiole, phiole, phial (“small bowl or cup for liquids, etc.; flask”)fial, fialle, fiol, fyale, fyall, fyol, fyole, fyoll, viel, viele: see further at a doublet of phial. a doublet of phiale.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA