Definitions

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

  • noun A small container, usually with a closure, used especially for liquids.
  • transitive verb To put or keep in or as if in a vial.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A vessel or bottle; especially, a small glass bottle used for holding liquids, and particularly liquid medicines. Also phial.
  • To put or keep in a vial, or as in a vial.
  • To store up for punishment or vengeance: with reference to Rev. xvi. 1.
  • Also phial.

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

  • noun A small bottle, usually of glass; a little glass vessel with a narrow aperture intended to be closed with a stopper.
  • transitive verb To put in a vial or vials.

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

  • noun A glass vessel or bottle, especially a small bottle used to store medicine or perfume.
  • verb transitive To put or keep in, or as in, a vial.

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

  • noun a small bottle that contains a drug (especially a sealed sterile container for injection by needle)

Etymologies

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

[Middle English viole, variant of fiol; see phial.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English viole, fiole, Old French fiole. From Ancient Greek word φιάλη (phialē, "a broad flat container"). See also phial.

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Examples

  • Contrast Re 7: 3; Eze 9: 4, 6. grievous -- distressing to the sufferers. sore upon the men -- antitype to the sixth Egyptian plague. which had the mark of the beast -- Therefore this first vial is subsequent to the period of the beast's rule.

    Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible 1871

  • And as long as you keep using the same syringe, or even a new syringe going back into that vial, which is now a tainted well, you could possibly give people.

    CNN Transcript Feb 28, 2008 2008

  • Oh, and something else I meant to say: when I was listening to “The Chaser” a couple of weeks ago I was on my bicycle, and JUST as you got to the bit where the old man called the vial of liquid ‘Life Cleaner’ I went past a shop with a sign saying, ‘Life Cleaner.’

    Prizes | Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast 2006

  • For trapped in the vial was the preserved ghost of Thomas Alva Edison, and there is no telling what power the possession of that ghost could confer.

    Expiration Date Divers 2008

  • Vivian Edomobi, a graduate student, died of hyperglycemia at age 23 in 1987 from a spurious drug -- the vial was a worthless fake.

    Fighting Fake Drugs 2007

  • You go to grab a 10 unit vial, which is what these babies were supposed to get, and you grab a 10,000 unit vial, and that's why Cedars-Sinai is saying this was preventable.

    CNN Transcript Nov 21, 2007 2007

  • But inside the vial was a shriveled-looking thing I thought resembled a pickled plum, though it was brownish rather than purple.

    Memoirs of a Geisha Golden, Arthur, 1957- 1997

  • Underneath the vial was a slip of paper, on which was written, --

    That Mainwaring Affair

  • A vision of the little blue-glass, yellow-labelled vial that held the swift dismissing pang, floated before him.

    The Dop Doctor Richard Dehan 1897

  • Near it was an old spinnet, upon which stood a labelled vial, a tea-cup, and

    Turns of Fortune And Other Tales S. C. Hall 1840

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