n.
- A large, often metallic container for holding or storing liquids or gases.
- The amount that this container can hold: buy a tank of gas.
- A usually artificial pool, pond, reservoir, or cistern, especially one used to hold water for drinking or for irrigation.
- An enclosed, heavily armored combat vehicle that is armed with cannon and machine guns and moves on continuous tracks.
- A tank top.
- Slang. A jail or jail cell.
v., tanked, tank·ing, tanks. v.tr.
To place, store, or process in a tank.
v.intr.
Slang. To suffer a sudden decline or failure: "Steady investors . . . kept their heads when the stock market tanked in October 1987" (Burton G. Malkiel).
phrasal verb:
tank up
- Slang. To drink to the point of intoxication.
- To fill the tank of a motor vehicle with gasoline.
[Partly from Gujarati tānkh, cistern (from Sanskrit taḍāgaḥ, pond , perhaps of Dravidian origin) and partly from Portuguese tanque, reservoir (variant of estanque , from estancar, to dam up , from Vulgar Latin *stanticāre; see stanch1).]
tankful tank'ful' (-fʊl') n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
