Definition of "container"

container

/kənˈteɪnə/

noun
plural containers
1. Someone who contains; something that contains.
2. An item in which objects, materials or data can be stored or transported.
3. (transport) A very large, typically metal, box used for transporting goods.
  Quotations
  Will container development merely bring about a substitution for the body of the covered wagon? Probably not, in his view, but he believes that the size and tonnage of the container are likely to increase pari passu with the lifting capacity of handling appliances.
  1963 April, “Beyond the Channel: France: Freight stock of the future”, in Modern Railways, page 269
  The specifiers of the Freightliner network had the foresight to base the rail journey on carrying ISO containers which are 8ft wide and originally 8ft tall (although now increased to a height of 9ft 6ins), with a variety of lengths.
  2020 May 20, Industry Insider, “An online boost for freight”, in Rail, page 68
4. (by extension) Someone who holds people in their seats or in a (reasonably) calm state.
5. (computing)
  1. (file format) A file format that can hold various types of data.
    Quotations
    As the MP4 container can store audio, video, or both, the M4A naming and file extension is used to hint that this MP4 container holds solely audio information.
    2011, Cory Altheide, Harlan Carvey, Digital Forensics with Open Source Tools, page 187
  2. (object-oriented programming) An abstract data type whose instances are collections of other objects.
    Quotations
    This advantage is the primary incentive for using a list container, rather than a vector or a deque.
    2015, Ivor Horton, Using the C++ Standard Template Libraries, Apress, page 64
  3. (graphical user interface) Any user interface component that can hold further (child) components.
    Quotations
    Flex automatically creates a TabBar container at the top of the TabNavigator container, with a tab corresponding to each child container. Each tab can have its own label and icon.
    2007, Rich Tretola, Simon Barber, Renaun Erickson, Professional Adobe Flex 2, John Wiley & Sons, page 62
  4. (Java programming language) A web container.
  5. (cloud computing) A bundle consisting of operating system, application code and dependencies to be run sandboxed inside a virtualized environment; (by extension) the environment itself.
    Quotations
    Generally, when people think of serverless computing, they tend to think of applications with back-ends that run on third-party services, also described as code running on ephemeral containers.
    2017, Maddie Stigler, Beginning Serverless Computing, Apress, page 1