Canteen

Canteen (through the Fr. cantine, from Ital. cantina, a cellar), a word chiefly used in a military sense for an official sutler’s shop, where provisions, &c., are sold to soldiers. The word was formerly applied also to portable equipments for carrying liquors and food, or for cooking in the field. Another sense of the word, which has survived to the present day, is that of a soldier’s water-bottle, or of a small wooden or metal can for carying a workman’s liquor, &c.

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