1
: a usually cylindrical container with a handle : bucket
a milk pail
2
: the quantity that a pail contains
a pail of water
Examples of pail in a Sentence
A plastic beach pail was lying on the sand.
She poured a pail of water on the campfire.
Recent Examples on the Web
Don't be the house that supplies the candy everyone hates and leaves at the bottom of their pail.
—
Dina Kaur, AZCentral.com, 28 Oct. 2025
But families attend this event mainly for the festive atmosphere, so don’t go expecting to fill up your Halloween pail.
—John Metcalfe, Mercury News, 21 Oct. 2025
And, that there was a goblin, squatting in my skull, rattling a metal pail full of bolts and hissing failure, rot, spoil.
—Literary Hub, 15 Oct. 2025
Filtering through the magnitude of product options is a full-time job—the sheer range of items, from cotton swaddles to monitors to diaper pails, exemplifies the paradox of choice.
—Cortne Bonilla, Vogue, 14 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for pail
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Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
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Dina Kaur, AZCentral.com, 28 Oct. 2025
But families attend this event mainly for the festive atmosphere, so don’t go expecting to fill up your Halloween pail.
—John Metcalfe, Mercury News, 21 Oct. 2025
And, that there was a goblin, squatting in my skull, rattling a metal pail full of bolts and hissing failure, rot, spoil.
—Literary Hub, 15 Oct. 2025
Filtering through the magnitude of product options is a full-time job—the sheer range of items, from cotton swaddles to monitors to diaper pails, exemplifies the paradox of choice.
—Cortne Bonilla, Vogue, 14 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for pail
Cite this Entry
“Pail.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pail. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
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