: a large vessel (such as a cistern, tub, or barrel) especially for holding liquors in an immature state or preparations for dyeing or tanning
2
: a liquor containing a dye converted into a soluble reduced colorless or weakly colored form that on textile material steeped in the liquor and exposed to the air is converted by oxidation to the original insoluble dye and precipitated in the fiber
The recipes: Make a vat of this chile- and garlic-packed Cuban sauce and put it on just about everything. Ali Francis, Bon Appétit, 8 Sep. 2022 Two bakers formed their own small assembly line while a vat of golden syrup, a key ingredient made from water, lemon and sugar, boiled away. Momo Chang, San Francisco Chronicle, 31 Aug. 2022 The film grabs ingredients not only from horror and comedy predecessors, but buddy-cop and cartel-war flicks, martial-arts movies and just a soupçon of Blaxploitation, and stirs them together in a vat of gory goodness. Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times, 11 Aug. 2022 Ana Mabel was on the outskirts of the crowd, mixing peanuts and caramelized sugar in a metal vat.New York Times, 6 Aug. 2022 The number of workers at a Pennsylvania Mars Wrigley plant who were rescued after falling into a vat of dry chocolate. Mark Murray, NBC News, 10 June 2022 Leni Fortson, a spokesperson for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which is investigating the incident, said the workers were performing maintenance work inside the vat when they got trapped. Lindsey Bever, Washington Post, 10 June 2022 The pair were pulled from a vat of dry chocolate, according to a spokesperson for Lancaster County emergency dispatch. Dennis Romero, NBC News, 10 June 2022 Stage 4 – Blame: When the hot tub turns out to be nothing more than a large, pink plastic vat with knobs that don’t work, your friend decides to rip the Bandaid off. Kris Frieswick, WSJ, 13 May 2022 See More
Word History
Etymology
Noun
Middle English vet, vat, southern variant of fat, fet, going back to Old English fæt, going back to Germanic *fata- (whence Old Saxon fat "vessel," Old High German faz); akin to Lithuanian púodas "pot"