Creel (basket)

In modern times, the term has come to encompass various types of wicker baskets used by anglers or commercial fishermen to hold fish or other prey.

[1] In the North Sea herring industry of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the creel was a basket used to measure the volume of a catch.

An angler's creel is designed to function as an evaporative cooler when lined with moss and dipped into the creek to keep the catch chilled.

[3] Creels are also the high sides added to a towed trailer, making it more suitable for carrying loose materials such as turf.

However, the Middle English Dictionary asserts that it derives from Old French "grëil, gräil, grëille, gräille a grill (from L[atin] cratīcula)".