Flask

Biggest pub in Highgate, and the oldest pub building, dating from the 1600s. In summer months full of tourists and vile student types, and often people talking about how much money they've got and how to get more. Is opposite big Georgian houses inhabited by Annie Lennox, Pierce Brosnan, and Sting, and formerly by Yehudi Menuhin, Coleridge, and J.B. Priestley.

There is also a Flask in neighbouring Hampstead, in Flask Walk. This has a saloon bar and a lounge bar in which different prices are charged, separated by an ornate glass screen. One of the centres of Hampstead life.

Flask (?), n. [AS. flasce, flaxe; akin to D. flesch, OHG. flasca, G. flasche, Icel. & Sw. flaska, Dan. flaske, OF. flasche, LL. flasca, flasco; of uncertain origin; cf. L. vasculum, dim. of vas a vessel, Gr. , , . Cf. Flagon, Flasket.]

1.

A small bottle-shaped vessel for holding fluids; as, a flask of oil or wine.

2.

A narrow-necked vessel of metal or glass, used for various purposes; as of sheet metal, to carry gunpowder in; or of wrought iron, to contain quicksilver; or of glass, to heat water in, etc.

3.

A bed in a gun carriage.

[Obs.]

Bailey.

4. Founding

The wooden or iron frame which holds the sand, etc., forming the mold used in a foundry; it consists of two or more parts; viz., the cope or top; sometimes, the cheeks, or middle part; and the drag, or bottom part. When there are one or more cheeks, the flask is called a three part flask, four part flask, etc.

Erlenmeyer flask, a thin glass flask, flat-bottomed and cone-shaped to allow of safely shaking its contents laterally without danger of spilling; -- so called from Erlenmeyer, a German chemist who invented it. -- Florence flask. [From Florence in Italy.] (a) Same as Betty, n., 3. (b) A glass flask, round or pear-shaped, with round or flat bottom, and usually very thin to allow of heating solutions. -- Pocket flask, a kind of pocket dram bottle, often covered with metal or leather to protect it from breaking.

 

© Webster 1913.