Definition
nounA circular wooden vessel, made of hooped staves.
nounA kind of basket made especially from straw of rushes, especially for holding fish; by extension, the contents of such a basket or similar container, used as a measure of weight.
Sentence Examples
I built the kit taking care not to make mistakes in the wiring.
Our P.E. kit was just shorts but now it's spats from today.
Christopher is commonly known as Kit.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English kyt, kytt, kytte, from Middle Dutch kitte (“a wooden vessel made of hooped staves”). Related to Dutch kit (“tankard”) (see below). The further etymology is unknown. Perhaps from Proto-Germanic *kitjō-, *kut-, which would be related to the root of Dutch kot (“ramshackle house”), itself of non-Indo-European origin.
The transfer of meaning to the contents of a soldier's knapsack dates to the late 18th century, extended use of any collection of necessaries used for travelling dates to the first half of the 19th century.
The further widening of the sense to a collection of parts sold for the buyer to assemble emerges in American English in the mid 20th century.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Dudes! You simply have too much stuff in your kit! But don't sweat it, I can buy some stuff you don't need."
— 1995, HAL Laboratory, EarthBound, Nintendo, Super Nintendo Entertainment System:
"A sell-out crowd of 10,000 then observed perfectly a period of silence before the team revealed their black armbands, complete with stitched-in poppies, for the match. After Fifa’s about-turn, it must have been a frantic few days for the England kit manufacturer. The on-field challenge was altogether more straightforward."
— 2011 November 10, Jeremy Wilson, “England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report”, in Telegraph:
"The Argentina fan who risked jail by getting her kit off at the World Cup final has broken her silence by posting more topless videos."
— 2022 December 20, “Topless Argie fan breaks silence with more nude vids as she dodges Qatar's wrath”, in The US Sun:
"Do you know the proportion between ten and twelve or thirteen? — No; I should suppose you may take the whole kit of them as thirty; and the rest are people at from twenty to forty years of age."
— 1818, Reports, volume 92, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords, page 82:
"“You must call them ‘squibs and crackers.’ And what would you call her?” pointing to the cat. ¶ “Cat or kit, or whatever you please, sir.”"
— 1890, Joseph Jacobs, “Master of all Masters”, in English Fairy Tales, page 221: