Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The amount of liquid within a container that is lost, as by leakage, during shipment or storage.
  • noun The amount by which a container, such as a bottle, cask, or tank, falls short of being full.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In com., the wantage of a cask, or the estimated measure of the empty part of a cask of liquor.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Com.) The amount which a vessel, as a cask, of liquor lacks of being full; wantage; deficiency.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun In a wine bottle, the empty space between the cork and the top of the wine.
  • noun In a cask or barrel, the empty space, occupied by air, that is created by not completely filling the cask or barrel
  • noun The topping-up of such a barrel with fresh wine
  • noun In an industrial setting, the empty space in a tank, such as for fuel

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the amount that a container (as a wine bottle or tank) lacks of being full

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English ulage, from Old French ouillage, from ouiller, to fill up a cask, from ouil, eye, bunghole, from Latin oculus, eye; see okw- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English ulage, from Anglo-Norman ullage, from *ullier (“to fill a partially empty cask”), from Old French oel ("bunghole", literally, "eye"), from Latin oculus ("eye").

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Examples

Comments

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  • A handy word for pessimists.

    July 30, 2008

  • liquid entropy

    July 30, 2009

  • "Now the sporting spirit has definitively run out, replaced by dedicated afternoon boozing, history like a puddle of ullage."

    London Orbital by Iain Sinclair, p 391 of the Penguin paperback edition

    February 9, 2012

  • A neighbor asks to use your yard waste bin and promises, "I'll leave an ullage for you."

    June 17, 2016

  • (noun/verb) - (1) The remainder in a cask or package which has leaked or been partially used.

    --Admiral William Smyth's Sailor's Word Book, 1867

    (2) Ullage of a cask is what such a vessel wants of being full.

    --Edward Phillips' New World of English Words, 1706

    (3) The quantity of liquor contained in a cask partially filled, and the capacity of the portion which is empty, are termed respectively the wet and dry ullage.

    --Encyclopedia Britannica, 1883

    (4) To calculate the amount of ullage in a cask. To fill up again an ullaged cask.

    --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1926

    January 16, 2018