punnet

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a small light basket used as a measure for fruits

Etymology

Uncertain. 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.

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