Pronunciations (6)
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/ˈkɛ.təl/
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[ˈkʰɛtᵊɫ̩]
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/ˈkɛ.təl/
Pronunciation notes
- US
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[ˈkʰɛɾɫ̩]
Pronunciation notes
- US
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/ˈkɪtəl/
Pronunciation notes
- US
- dated
- regional
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/ˈkɛʈɪl/
Pronunciation notes
- South-Asia
Noun
A vessel for boiling a liquid or cooking food, usually metal and equipped with a lid.
- Broader terms
- Examples
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The soup is boiling in a large kettle.
To cook pasta, you first need to put the kettle on.
There's a hot kettle of soup on the stove.
The quantity held by a kettle.
A vessel or appliance used to boil water for the preparation of hot beverages and other foodstuffs.
- Synonyms
- Examples
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Fill the kettle with water for tea.
Stick the kettle on and we'll have a nice cup of tea.
A kettle hole, sometimes any pothole.
A group of raptors swirling and spiraling upward as they ride a thermal, especially when migrating.
Usage- collective
- Examples
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a kettle of hawks
Kettles can consist of thousands of birds migrating together.
More examples (3)
the "River of Raptors" - an enormous kettle of hawks - circles over Cardel, in Veracruz, Mexico, in early October
then a pure Swainsons's hawk kettle of about 50 birds
When one hawk discovers a thermal, others notice its spiraling flight and join it, not out of any sense of sociability but because rising on a thermal and gliding to the next saves the energy of flapping on a long flight. Groups of hawks all spiraling on the same thermal are called kettles.
A steam locomotive.
Usage- Slang
A kettledrum.
An instance of kettling; a group of protesters or rioters confined in a limited area.
A watch (timepiece).
Usage- Slang
A bucket for holding a quantity of paint during the painting process.
A type of encirclement.
- Synonyms
- Examples
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Near-synonym: cauldron
Verb
To contain demonstrators in a confined area.
Usage- of the police
- Examples
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More examples (2)
Life for senior officers has been made much easier by the use of counter-terrorism powers, which enable them to contain demonstrators for hours in a confined spot. This tactic, known as kettling, is seen by some as an attempt to prevent people lawfully demonstrating.
A couple of the initial pepper spray incidents went viral on YouTube, one showing very young women screaming hysterically while penned—or is the term for this ‘kettled’?—by bright orange police mesh.
Of a boiler: to make a whistling sound like the boiling of a kettle, indicative of various types of fault.
Usage- Intransitive
Noun
a metal pot for stewing or boiling; usually has a lid
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
the quantity a kettle will hold
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
(geology) a hollow (typically filled by a lake) that results from the melting of a mass of ice trapped in glacial deposits
- Synonyms
a large hemispherical brass or copper percussion instrument with a drumhead that can be tuned by adjusting the tension on it
- Synonyms
- Broader terms