CONTAIN • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Contain

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/kəntˈeɪn/ Listen

verb

Contain v. t. (past & past part. contained; pres. part. containing)

To hold within fixed limits; to comprise; to include; to inclose; to hold. "Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can not contain thee; how much less this house!" "When that this body did contain a spirit." "What thy stores contain bring forth."

To have capacity for; to be able to hold; to hold; to be equivalent to; as, a bushel contains four pecks.

To put constraint upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds. (Obs., exept as used reflexively.) "The king's person contains the unruly people from evil occasions." "Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves."

Contain v. i. To restrain desire; to live in continence or chastity. "But if they can not contain, let them marry."

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Etymology of 'Contain'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Contain" Quotes from Famous Books

... I'm afraid about that" says Perpetua demurely; "I'm not. I know the same place could never contain Aunt Jane and me for long, ...

— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... names and doings, are quite unworthy of credit. They rest upon no contemporary evidence or sure tradition. To say nothing of the miraculous elements that enter into the narratives, they are laden with other improbabilities, which prove them to be the fruit of imagination. They contain impossibilities in chronology. They ascribe laws, institutions, and religion, which were of slow growth, to particular individuals, apportioning to each his own part in an artificial way. Many of the stories are borrowed from the Greeks, and were originally ...

— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... to contain one long Sermon, or two of moderate length, on superfine paper. The Volume to commence annually the last week ...

— The National Preacher, Vol. 2. No. 6., Nov. 1827 - Or Original Monthly Sermons from Living Ministers • William Patton

... coincides in large measure with Alfred's reign, 871-901, and he is the greatest prose writer. His translations of Latin works to serve as textbooks for his people contain excellent additions by him. AElfric, a tenth century prose writer, has left a collection of sermons, called Homilies, and an interesting Colloquium, which throws strong lights on the social life of the time. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is an important ...

— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... they contrive to make intelligible the will of a free and just community." ... "The matters there debated (in town meetings) are such as to invite very small consideration. The ill-spelled pages of the town records contain the result. I shall be excused for confessing that I have set a value upon any symptom of meanness and private pique which I have met with in these antique books, as proof that justice was done; that if the ...

— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

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