punnet
(UK, Irish, Commonwealth) A small basket or receptacle for collecting and selling fruit, particularly strawberries.
Etymology timeline
Born ~1820 · no dated citations yet19th centurySee decade cohort →
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UK
#1·Apr 27, 2026UK
(UK, Irish, Commonwealth) A small basket or receptacle for collecting and selling fruit, particularly strawberries.
1904, Arthur George Liddon Rogers, The Business Side of Agriculture, 2010, Forgotten Books, [http://books.google.com.au/books?id=m7aKGnqI1ZEC&pg=PA85&dq=%22punnet%22|%22punnets%22+-intitle:%22%22+-inauthor:%22%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bTDxT_qhDq…
Origin: . First appears in the 1820s. Perhaps a diminutive of pun, a dialect variant of pound, the weight + -et. The suggestion that it is an eponym of Reginald Crundall Punnett (1875–1967), geneticist and grower of strawberries, is not chronologically possible. The suggestion it was an ancestor of his lacks evidence. Origin information sourced from Wiktionary contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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