Meaning of contain in English

contain

verb

/kənˈteɪn/ us

/kənˈteɪn/

contain verb (HOLD)

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B1 [ T not continuous ]

to have something inside or include something as a part:

How much liquid do you think this bottle contains?

I lost a file containing a lot of important documents.

Try to avoid foods which contain a lot of fat.

contained in The allegations contained in this report are very serious.

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Raw vegetables contain more potassium than cooked ones.
These biscuits contain oats.
The cupboard contained all kinds of strange things.
The following programme contains scenes that may be disturbing to some viewers.
The letter contains a number of typing errors.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Including and containing

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contain verb (CONTROL)

[ T not continuous ]

to keep something harmful within limits and not allow it to spread:

Farms in the area have been closed off in an attempt to contain the disease.

More police were sent to help contain the violence.

C2 [ T often in negatives ]

to control or hide a strong emotion, such as excitement or anger:

She could no longer contain her anger and started yelling at him.

humorous Contain yourself! It's not that exciting.

[ T ]

in sport, to prevent an opponent from playing well and scoring a lot of points:

The Croatian contained his opponent with powerful serves and deep ground-strokes.

Villa managed to contain Chelsea's powerful forwards.

[ T not continuous ]

in American football, to keep a player on the offence from running to the edges of the field when the player has the ball:

They have a chance to win if they are able to contain the other team's quarterback and force him to throw passes.

The defence was able to contain the running backs and hold them to short yardage for most of the game.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Limiting and restricting

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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Controlling emotions

American football

(Definition of contain from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

contain | American Dictionary

contain

verb [ T ]

/kənˈteɪn/

contain verb [T] (HAVE INSIDE)

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(of an object or area) to have an amount of something inside or within it:

How much liquid does this bottle contain?

Each large crate contains 12 boxes.

contain verb [T] (INCLUDE)

to have as a part, or be equal to; include:

The information contained on forms would be kept strictly confidential.

Each food serving contains 95 calories.

You could retrieve all files that contained certain key words.

contain verb [T] (CONTROL)

to keep within limits; not to allow to spread:

Medical teams were scrambling to contain the illness that has already killed thousands in Latin America.

(Definition of contain from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of contain

contain

The pens were contained in a secure room with adequate light and ventilation with heating available as required.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The syncytium cytoplasm contained mitochondria and vesicles, similar to those in collecting tubes (fig. 23).

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Macrophages containing haemosiderin pigment were found particularly in the meninges.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The damage was only contained, however; not repaired.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Heterocyst-vegetative cell junctions often excrete copious amount of mucilage, which contains carbohydrates, peptides [6] and free amino acids [7].

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The idea that the primordial mixture contained seeds of plants and animals takes account of both these points.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Each output image contains a complete reflectance spectrum from 400 to 1000 nm.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Up to now, the only accretion ice containing mica-clay sediments allowed the recovery of a few bacterial phylotypes.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Altruism, mutuality and developmental dependencies are framed as contained by the private in this respect.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The book ends with a short conclusion which contains some remarks on crosslinguistic variations.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The volume contains fourteen contributions, which are alphabetically ordered.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Each picture pair contained similar or identical characters or objects.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In (68a), the theme a piece of his mind contains a pronoun, anaphoric to the agent subject of the clause.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The chapter contains a list of phonemes and their corresponding graphemes, and then a list of graphemes with their corresponding phonemic values.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Much of acrolectal speech is colloquial and often contains nonstandard features.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of contain?

Translations of contain

in Chinese (Traditional)

擁有, 包含, 容納…

in Chinese (Simplified)

拥有, 包含, 容纳…

in Spanish

contener, parar…

in Portuguese

conter…

in more languages

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आत काहीतरी असणे किंवा भाग म्हणून काहीतरी समाविष्ट करणे, रोखणे, अटकाव करणे…

（もの）が入っている, 入（い）れる, 含（ふく）む…

kapsamak, içermek, ihitva etmek…

contenir, maîtriser, (se) contenir…

contenir…

bevatten, beheersen…

உள்ளே ஏதாவது இருக்க வேண்டும் அல்லது ஒரு பகுதியாக ஏதாவது சேர்க்க வேண்டும், தீங்கு விளைவிக்கும் ஒன்றை வரம்பிற்குள் வைத்திருப்பது மற்றும் அது பரவ அனுமதிக்காமல் இருப்பது, உற்சாகம் அல்லது கோபம் போன்ற வலுவான உணர்ச்சியைக் கட்டுப்படுத்த அல்லது மறைக்க…

के अंदर होना, समावेषित होना, (किसी हानिकारक चीज़ को फैलने से) रोकना…

અંદર કોઈ ચીજ રાખવી અથવા એક ભાગ તરીકે સામેલ કરવી., આગળ વધતું અટકાવવું, કાબૂમાં રાખવું…

indeholde, rumme, holde nede…

innehålla, rymma, behärska…

mengandungi, mengawal…

enthalten, zügeln…

inneholde, begrense, holde tilbake…

شامل ہونا, شامل کرنا, مشتمل ہونا…

містити (мати) в собі, вміщати, стримувати…

содержать, вмещать, сдерживать…

లోపల ఏదైనా కలిగి ఉండటం లేక ఏదో ఒక భాగంగా చేర్చడం, ఏదైనా పరిమితుల్లో హానికరమైనదిగా ఉంచడం మరియు అది వ్యాప్తి చెందడానికి అనుమతించవద్దు, ఉత్సాహం లేక కోపం వంటి బలమైన భావోద్వేగాన్ని నియంత్రించడం లేక దాచడం…

يَحْتَوي عَلى…

অন্তর্ভুক্ত করা, দমন করা, সংযত করা…

obsahovat, ovládnout…

berisi, mengendalikan…

บรรจุ, ควบคุม…

chứa đựng, kiềm chế…