I use them quite often but I'm not sure what to call them. Their pictures appear in these links.

Should I call what is depicted in the first link a water spray bottle or a water sprayer? The picture in the second link is a black thingI put CDs through. Can I call it a pole or spindle?

  • 3
    Ironically, the terms you were looking for almost appear in the links you provided above! plastic-water-spray-bottle and cddvd-cake-box-spindle :) – Mohit Feb 10 '13 at 18:09
  • 3
    The first object should be called a spray bottle. Leave the word "water" out of the description; it can be used for fluids other than water (it could be filled with insecticide, for example). – J.R. Feb 10 '13 at 20:01
  • Just as a side note, I've heard the second item referred to as a "spool" usually used in a way such as: "Spool of DVDs" or "Spool of CDs" - Australian English – Deco Feb 11 '13 at 7:31
  • can't believe no one has mentioned "squirt bottle", which is quite common (in the US at least) – Apologize and reinstate Monica Jul 16 '18 at 15:39

The first is often called a mister - a device, such as a bottle, with a nozzle for spraying a mist of water, esp. on houseplants.

The second is often called a CD cakebox, defined by Google as...

1: A storage container for a round layer cake, with a surrounding cover that protects and preserves the cake.
2: A similarly shaped package for blank, recordable compact discs, with a central spindle on which discs are stacked.

As implied by that second definition, if OP specifically wants to refer to the "pole" in the middle, it's always called the spindle.

  • 1
    Is the term mister often used in the UK? We have misters as well, but a sprayer can either mist or spray, while a mister typically only mists but doesn't spray. (That's just how I'd classify them; I'm not even sure most Americans would agree with that, but you've got me curious now, mister.) – J.R. Feb 10 '13 at 20:05
  • My (UK) mother, for example, is likely to say something like "No! Not the sprayer! I'm looking for the mister!" to differentiate between the (invariably, somewhat larger) jobbie you use out in the garden, and the one she uses on houseplants. But most people probably don't usually distinguish. They always have that turny thing by the nozzle, so they can all produce mist or spray. As to a US/UK difference, the only citation for houseplants with a mister is manifestly American in origin. – FumbleFingers Reinstate Monica Feb 10 '13 at 20:27
  • 3
    In my (UK and, to a much lesser extent, US) experience, the term "spray bottle" is much more common than "mister". – David Richerby Jul 7 '14 at 7:55

For the first one, either spray bottle or sprayer are correct.

The second one is a CD spindle; CD pole is not correct (at least from Googling, it doesn't return any related results).

Your Answer

