• enPR: kən-tānʹ, IPA: /kənˈteɪn/

contain (contains, present participle containing; past and past participle contained)

1. (transitive) To hold inside.
   • 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619 ↗:

     At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors. […] In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.

2. (transitive) To include as a part.
3. (transitive) To put constraint upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds.

   I'm so excited, I can hardly contain myself!

   • The king's person contains the unruly people from evil occasions.

   • c. 1590–1592, William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act INDUCTION, scene i]:

     Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves.

   • 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619 ↗, page 16 ↗:

     Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn.

4. (mathematics, of a set etc., transitive) To have as an element or subset.

   A group contains a unique inverse for each of its elements.

   If that subgraph contains the vertex in question then it must be spanning.

5. (obsolete, intransitive) To restrain desire; to live in continence or chastity.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Bible Corinthians/#8 1 Corinthians:8–9 ↗:

     But if they cannot contain, let them marry.

• (hold inside) enclose, inhold
• (include as part) comprise, embody, incorporate, inhold
• (limit by restraint) control, curb, repress, restrain, restrict, stifle; See also Thesaurus:curb

• (include as part) exclude, omit
• (limit by restraint) release, vent

• container
• containable
• containment
• content
• continence

• French: contenir
• German: enthalten
• Italian: contenere
• Portuguese: conter
• Russian: содержа́ть
• Spanish: contener

• French: contenir
• Italian: contenere
• Portuguese: conter
• Russian: содержа́ть
• Spanish: contener

• French: contenir
• Italian: contenere
• Portuguese: conter
• Russian: сде́рживать
• Spanish: contener, dominar