What is the difference between a pail and a bucket?

Question

Several friends and I are trying to figure this one out! Is one a British term and one American or Canadian (we are Canadian)? Please help us restore our sanity!!!

Answer 1

They have the same use however, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary the word "bucket" is older then the word "pail" by a century.

Main Entry: pail
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English payle, paille
Date: 14th century
1 : a usually cylindrical container with a handle

Main Entry: bucket
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French buket, from Old English būc pitcher, belly; akin to Old High German būh belly
Date: 13th century
1: a typically cylindrical vessel for catching, holding, or carrying liquids or solids

Answer 2

After visiting a historical Village at King's landing New Brunswick it was explained that a pail has a wider top opening and a bucket has a wider base. This makes it easier to fill a pail with water and keep a bucket stable on board a ship. Neither are required to be cylindrical, but rather taper out for a pail and in for a bucket at the top or the reverse for the bottom where the bucket is wider and the pail narrower

Answer 3

Define Pail

Answer 4

BUCKET:a deep, cylindrical vessel, usually of metal, plastic, or wood, with a flat bottom and a semicircular bail, for collecting, carrying, or holding water, sand, fruit, etc.; pail.
2. anything resembling or suggesting this.
3. Machinery. a. any of the scoops attached to or forming the endless chain in certain types of conveyors or elevators.
b. the scoop or clamshell of a steam shovel, power shovel, or dredge.
c. a vane or blade of a waterwheel, paddle wheel, water turbine, or the like.

4. (in a dam) a concave surface at the foot of a spillway for deflecting the downward flow of water.
5. a bucketful: a bucket of sand.
6. Basketball. a. Informal. field goal.
b. the part of the keyhole extending from the foul line to the end line.

7. bucket seat.
8. Bowling. a leave of the two, four, five, and eight pins, or the three, five, six, and nine pins.
–verb (used with object) 9. to lift, carry, or handle in a bucket (often fol. by up or out).
10. Chiefly British. to ride (a horse) fast and without concern for tiring it.
11. to handle (orders, transactions, etc.) in or as if in a bucket shop.
–verb (used without object) 12. Informal. to move or drive fast; hurry.
—Idioms13. drop in the bucket, a small, usually inadequate amount in relation to what is needed or requested: The grant for research was just a drop in the bucket.
14. drop the bucket on, Australian Slang. to implicate, incriminate, or expose.
15. kick the bucket, Slang. to die: His children were greedily waiting for him to kick the bucket.

PAIL: a bucket.

Answer 5

Pail = smaller and children play with it

Bucket = larger and adults use it for work

Answer 6

a pail is the term usually used for a small bucket

buckets are bigger

Answer 7

You put dirt in a bucket and fruit and vegs in a pail.

Answer 8

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RE:
What is the difference between a pail and a bucket?
Several friends and I are trying to figure this one out! Is one a British term and one American or Canadian (we are Canadian)? Please help us restore our sanity!!!

Answer 9

number of syllables?

a pail has a handle and a bucket doesnt always have one?

a lot of times it depends on the area you're in for what terminology you'll get... Like "pop" and "soda" - basically the same thing but you wont hear anyone say "soda" this far north nor will you hear anyone say "pop" that far south...

Answer 10

They're interchangable. Same thing.