Punnet

A punnet is a small box for the gathering and sale of fruit and vegetables, typically small berries. The word is largely confined to Commonwealth countries (but not Canada) and is of uncertain origin, but is thought to be a diminutive of 'pun', a British dialect word for pound, from the days in which such containers were used as a unit of measurement. The British Dictionary of National Biography, parenthetically in its entry for geneticist R.C. Punnett (1875–1967), credits 'a strawberry growing ancestor devised the wooden basket known as a ‘punnet’'. A punnet is a small box for the gathering and sale of fruit and vegetables, typically small berries. The word is largely confined to Commonwealth countries (but not Canada) and is of uncertain origin, but is thought to be a diminutive of 'pun', a British dialect word for pound, from the days in which such containers were used as a unit of measurement. The British Dictionary of National Biography, parenthetically in its entry for geneticist R.C. Punnett (1875–1967), credits 'a strawberry growing ancestor devised the wooden basket known as a ‘punnet’'. Punnets were originally round woodchip baskets but typically are now rectangular and made of plastic; increasingly moulded pulp and corrugated fiberboard are being used as they are perceived to be more sustainable materials. Decorative punnets are often made of felt and seen in flower and craft arrangements.