{
  "id": "container.object",
  "term": "container",
  "sense": "object",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 6,
  "arena": "container",
  "domain": "L10",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "a thing that has a boundary and an inside where other matter can be kept",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "boundary.limit",
      "inside.spatial",
      "matter.substance",
      "keep.maintenance"
    ],
    "interaction": "The boundary and inside work together to contain matter by maintaining it within a limited space.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "containment",
      "persistent enclosure",
      "spatial retention"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Fukushima Daiichi reactor containment vessel held radioactive fuel during the 2011 meltdown, preventing total release into the atmosphere.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "A human red blood cell maintains hemoglobin within its plasma membrane, enabling oxygen transport through the circulatory system.",
      "domain": "biology"
    },
    {
      "text": "The Bitcoin blockchain's 1MB block limit from 2010–2017 constrained transaction throughput, shaping network scalability debates.",
      "domain": "computing"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "case.container",
      "note": "is-a",
      "type": "is-a"
    },
    {
      "id": "box.container",
      "note": "abstracts",
      "type": "abstracts"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [
    "cart.transport",
    "liquid.state",
    "package.container",
    "plate-is-full.capacity",
    "storage.physical"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "container",
    "containers"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6,
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "components",
      "note": "Added 'keep.maintenance' to components since the definition implies sustained placement of matter, not just spatial inclusion."
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-container.object"
}