hot water can

hot water can (plural hot water cans)

1. (historical) A can (often with a spout and handle) filled with hot water, used to warm a room, to keep one's feet warm, or to supply water for such things as shaving, washing, etc.
   • 1889, Helen Harcourt, Home Life in Florida, Louisville, Kentucky: John P. Morton, Chapter 11, p. 178,

     The rest of us were glad to creep between blankets, with a mountain of covers on top, and a hot water can inside. What a tale to tell of balmy Florida!

   • 1899, “Australian Prison Discipline,” condensed from an article in Colonial Empire, Shanghai, in Public Opinion, New York, Volume 26, No. 6, p. 174,

     A third warder proceeds along the doors with a hot water can, and each prisoner who by good conduct has earned the privilege of tea and sugar is supplied with the water to make his tea.

   • 1908, E. M. Forster, A Room with a View, Part 1, Chapter 3, p. 50,

     “Oh, dear Miss Honeychurch, you will catch a chill! And Mr. Beebe here besides. Who would suppose this is Italy? There is my sister actually nursing the hot-water can; no comforts or proper provisions.”

   • 1910, William J. Locke, A Christmas Mystery, New York: John Lane, p. 28,

     After weary waiting at Plymouth they took their seats in the little, cold local train that was to carry them another stage on their journey. Hot-water cans put in at Plymouth mitigated to some extent the iciness of the compartment.

   • 1942, Siegfried Sassoon, The Weald of Youth, London: Faber & Faber, 1943, Chapter 3, p. 44,

     Anyhow, here I am […] quite in the mood to revisit one of those Queen Anne country houses where I awoke on the morning after a dance and drowsily observed the discreet man-servant putting a hot-water can into the hip-bath, wondering whether he was expecting me to give him half-a-sovereign or whether five bob would be decent […]