1. Any object that can be used to hold things (especially a large metal boxlike object of standardized dimensions that can be loaded from one form of transport to another)
   "The shipping container was loaded onto the cargo ship"
    
2. (computing) a virtualized isolated operating system user space instance (running on the same kernel as other instances, as opposed to virtualization at the level of an entire machine)
   "Docker containers allowed for easy deployment of the application across different environments"
    
3. (computing) an instance of a data type that contains other objects
   "The developer used a list container to store multiple elements of the same type"

Derived forms: containers

Type of: instrumentality, instrumentation, means

Encyclopedia: Container