Barrel vs. Keg — What's the Difference?

A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wood or metal hoops.

A keg is a small barrel. Traditionally, a wooden keg is made by a cooper and used to transport items such as nails, gunpowder, and a variety of liquids.

A cylindrical container bulging out in the middle, traditionally made of wooden staves with metal hoops round them

A small cask or barrel with a capacity of about 30 gallons (114 liters).

A tube forming part of an object such as a gun or a pen

Such a container and its contents.

The belly and loins of a four-legged animal such as a horse

A unit of weight used for nails, equal to 100 pounds (45.5 kilograms).

Drive or move in a way that is so fast as to almost be out of control

To put or store in a small cask or barrel.

Put into a barrel or barrels

A round, traditionally wooden container of lesser capacity than a barrel, often used to store beer.

A large cylindrical container, usually made of staves bound together with hoops, with a flat top and bottom of equal diameter.

(transitive) To store in a keg.

The quantity that a barrel with a given or standard capacity will hold.

A small cask or barrel.

Abbr. bar. or bbl. or bl. Any of various units of volume or capacity. In the US Customary System it varies, as a liquid measure, from 31 to 42 gallons (117 to 159 liters) as established by law or usage.

The quantity contained in a keg

The thicker portion of a baseball bat, from which the most powerful hits are struck.

Small cask or barrel

The cylindrical part of a firearm through which the bullet travels.

A cylinder that contains a movable piston.

The drum of a capstan.

The cylinder within the mechanism of a timepiece that contains the mainspring.

The trunk of a quadruped animal, such as a horse or cow.

The tubular space inside a wave when it is breaking.

(Informal) A large quantity

(Slang) An act or instance of moving rapidly, often recklessly, in a motor vehicle.

Resembling or similar to a barrel, as in shape

To put or pack in a barrel.

To move or progress rapidly

(countable) A round (cylindrical) vessel, such as a cask, of greater length than breadth, and bulging in the middle, made of staves bound with hoops, and having flat ends (head). Sometimes applied to a similar cylindrical container made of metal, usually called a drum.

Such a cask of a certain size, holding one-eighth of what a tun#Noun holds. (See a diagram comparing cask sizes.)

The quantity which constitutes a full barrel: the volume or weight this represents varies by local law and custom.

A solid drum, or a hollow cylinder or case

A metallic tube, as of a gun, from which a projectile is discharged.

(television) A ceiling-mounted tube from which lights are suspended.

(archaic) A tube.

(zoology) The hollow basal part of a feather.

(music) The part of a clarinet which connects the mouthpiece and upper joint, and looks rather like a barrel (1).

(surfing) A wave that breaks with a hollow compartment.

A waste receptacle.

The ribs and belly of a horse or pony.

(obsolete) A jar.

(biology) Any of the dark-staining regions in the somatosensory cortex of rodents, etc., where somatosensory inputs from the contralateral side of the body come in from the thalamus.

(baseball) A statistic derived from launch angle and exit velocity of a ball hit in play.

(transitive) To put or to pack in a barrel or barrels.

(intransitive) To move quickly or in an uncontrolled manner.

(intransitive) To assume the shape of a barrel; specifically, of the image on a computer display, television, etc., to exhibit barrel distortion, where the sides bulge outwards.

A round vessel or cask, of greater length than breadth, and bulging in the middle, made of staves bound with hoops, and having flat ends or heads; as, a cracker barrel. Sometimes applied to a similar cylindrical container made of metal, usually called a drum.

The quantity which constitutes a full barrel. This varies for different articles and also in different places for the same article, being regulated by custom or by law. A barrel of wine is 31½ gallons; a barrel of flour is 196 pounds.

A solid drum, or a hollow cylinder or case; as, the barrel of a windlass; the barrel of a watch, within which the spring is coiled.

A metallic tube, as of a gun, from which a projectile is discharged.

A jar.

The hollow basal part of a feather.

To put or to pack in a barrel or barrels.

A tube through which a bullet travels when a gun is fired

A cylindrical container that holds liquids

A bulging cylindrical shape; hollow with flat ends

The quantity that a barrel (of any size) will hold

Any of various units of capacity;

Put in barrels