canteen
/kanˈtiːn
/noun
1A restaurant provided by an organization such as a college, factory, or company for its students or staff.Anybody who has seen a fight sequence from a Hindi film which takes place in a college canteen or a restaurant will know the answer....
- It is also about the activities of college students in the canteen, sports fields and between classes.
- Scotland's school canteens must become bistro-style restaurants, complete with salad bars and a menu of baguettes and grilled fish, food experts are to tell ministers.
Synonyms
restaurant, cafeteria, refectory, mess hall;
British Military NAAFI;
North American lunchroom;
French popote;
Russian stolovaya
South African informal cafe de move-on
2A small water bottle, as used by soldiers or campers.You don't just tell your soldiers to fill their canteens with water; you check them before a patrol to make sure they did....
- I also threw in two canteens of water and a flashlight (even though we weren't staying out after dark), the map from my office as well as my lensatic compass.
- The utility belt attached below the vest includes two canteens of water and a nine-millimeter pistol.
Synonyms
container;
flask, bottle, skin;
French bidon;
South African vatje
3British A specially designed case or box containing a set of cutlery.Parish council chairman Chris Tennant presented Denese with a canteen of cutlery and a bouquet in recognition of her work over the years, which was often over and above what her contract required....
- In years gone by, your granny might have had a canteen of silver cutlery and, at grand dinners, servers fashioned from the precious metal conveyed food from kitchen to table.
- One tonne of items such as swords, hatchets and entire canteens of cutlery have been confiscated from passengers departing Irish airports in just one month.
Origin
Mid 18th century (originally denoting a shop selling provisions or alcohol in a barracks or garrison town): from French cantine, from Italian cantina 'cellar'. A French use of cantine denoting a small compartmented case for carrying bottles of wine may have given rise to sense 3.
This was originally a type of shop in a barracks or garrison town, selling provisions and liquor to soldiers. The form comes from French cantine, from Italian cantina ‘cellar’. The French had already transferred this to the water bottle soldiers carry with them, and this sense came into the language at the same time as the original.