c1384 (Royal) (1850) Apoc. v. 8 Golden fioles [a1425 L.V. violis] ful of saueringis, whiche ben the preyers of seyntis.
c1400 (?c1380) (1920) 1476 (MED) Þe gobelotes of golde graven aboute, And fyoles fretted wyth flores and fleez of golde.
a1425 (a1382) (Corpus Oxf.) (1850) Num. vii. 79 A silueren fyol [a1425 L.V. viol] hauynge seuenti sicles at the weiȝt of the seyntuarie.
1490 W. Caxton tr. xiii. 47 The fyole fulle of the holi libacion.
1559 P. Morwyng tr. C. Gesner 64 Lyquors destilled shoulde be kepte in glasen phialles with narow mouthes.
1610 II. Amos vi. 6 You..that drinke wine in phials [1611 bowls].
1682 R. Boyle 12 A Glass Phial filled with Mercury.
1736 21 Feb. 2/1 Make a Powder, to be kept in a Phial close stopped.
1747 B. Franklin Let. 28 July in (1751) 7 Set the electrified phial on one, and then touch the wire.
1796 J. G. Stedman II. xxix. 375 I found a crystal phial filled with essential oil of orange.
1824 22 Feb. 267/1 The ammonia lost its stimulating properties, in consequence of the phial containing it being badly stopped.
1873 E. E. Hale iii. 16 What is the elixir in your phial?
1927 A. Conan Doyle 229 There was not much, but there was enough—an empty phial, another nearly full, a hypodermic syringe, several letters in a crabbed, foreign hand.
1959 (Sigmund Pumps Ltd.) (1960) 36 A temperature-sensitive phial is situated outside the house and this is connected to the mixing valve by means of a capillary tube.
1988 P. Sayer (1989) vi. 43 Each day he gave me an injection or two of a sickly-smelling substance which came in two brown phials.
2003 21 Jan. 2/6 The packages, discovered at about 11am at West Bay in Dorset, also contained phials of the drug dimercaprol, which acts as an antidote to heavy metal poisoning.