What is a Bottle?

The bottle is the principal container for most liquids consumed by humans. Bottles can be made of glass, pottery or a variety of other materials such as stone, wood and metal. Bottles are also used for a wide range of purposes ranging from water, tea, coffee, beer, soft drinks and wine to chemicals and medicines. They are often decorated, engraved and embossed with a name or logo. Bottles are also used for a variety of purposes in the home and industrial environments including food processing, laboratories, medical facilities, display screens, cooktop panels and optical fibre telecommunication systems.

A bottle is a container for liquids that can be closed and opened repeatedly to access the contents. The word bottle derives from the French verb “boire” which means to drink or savor (see also etymology). A bottle can be of any size and shape. Bottles can be empty, or they may contain a product such as spirits, milk, beer, wine, oil and other condiments, pharmaceutical products, personal hygiene and cleaning supplies, household chemicals and many others.

Glass bottles are generally considered to have evolved from the earliest containers used by humans which were likely made of animal bones or shells (see also etymology). While there have been many advances in manufacturing processes that now allow a variety of types, sizes and styles of bottle, the basic concept has remained relatively unchanged since the first use of glass for beverage bottles in ancient civilizations.

Bottles are most often made of a crystalline silica based material, but many different formulations can be used, such as borosilicate or flint. Glass is an extremely versatile material and is used in a large range of applications, from cooking and household appliances to medical devices and optics. Glass can be produced in a wide range of colors, shapes and textures, as well as having a variety of other special properties and uses, such as refracting light or enhancing color, sound or aroma.

The bottle is also a popular fictional object in television and movies, as reflected in the number of episodes of TV shows such as Star Trek, The X-Files and Succession that have been dubbed “bottle episodes” because of their limited sets and limited outdoor filming. However, reasonable people can disagree on whether or not an episode is a bottle episode.

The purpose of this series of Bottle Typing / Diagnostic Shapes pages is to allow users of this website to identify the most probable date and/or type for a specific bottle shape or style that they have found. The information provided here is based on key manufacturing based diagnostic characteristics that are common to most bottles manufactured during the era covered by these pages. The more of these diagnostic features that are present, the greater the confidence in the date estimate for the bottle.