cruet
/ˈkɹu.ɪt/noun
cruet is a noun meaning “A small bottle or container used to hold a condiment, such as oil, vinegar, salt, or pepper, for use at a dining table” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-R-U-E-T, and it appears about once in every 19 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of cruet is cruets.
What does cruet mean?
noun
- 1
A small bottle or container used to hold a condiment, such as oil, vinegar, salt, or pepper, for use at a dining table.
Near-synonym: shaker (sometimes synonymous)
- 2
UKA stand for these containers.
- 3
A small vessel used to hold wine or water for the Eucharist.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce cruet?
- /ˈkɹu.ɪt/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-cruet.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of cruet
- cruets plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is cruet?
Cruet appears about once in every 19 million words in written English, the 133,440th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Cruet in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense small bottle or container used to hold a condiment:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | galheteiro |
| Spanish | vinajera |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does cruet come from?
From Middle English, from Anglo-Norman cruet, diminutive of Old French crue (“an earthen pot”), from Old Saxon krūka.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).