Meaning & use
TEU
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Meaning
abbreviationcountabletechnicalbusiness
Short for twenty-foot equivalent unit: a measure of cargo capacity based on one standard shipping container twenty feet long.
Grammar: Countable and read letter by letter: one TEU, two TEUs; often used after a number with no plural s.
Patterns
- a ship of 10,000 TEU
- handle something TEUs
The new vessel can carry about 18,000 TEU.
The port handled over two million TEUs last year.
A forty-foot container counts as two TEU in the harbour's records.
Word forms
| plural | TEUs |
|---|
Common combinations
- million TEU
- The terminal moved three million TEU in a single year.
- capacity of 20,000 TEU
- The ship has a capacity of 20,000 TEU.
- container throughput in TEU
- Container throughput in TEU rose after the new crane arrived.
- measured in TEU
- Port size is often measured in TEU.
Synonyms and how they differ
- container
- A container is the physical box, whereas TEU is a unit for counting container space regardless of box length.
- FEU
- FEU means forty-foot equivalent unit and counts as two TEU, so it is a larger unit of the same kind.
Word family
- container noun
- a large metal box used to ship goods
- containerization noun
- shipping goods in standard containers
- FEU abbreviation
- a forty-foot equivalent unit, worth two TEU
Commonly confused: TEU or tonnage?
TEU vs tonnage
Tonnage measures a ship's weight or volume in tons, while TEU counts how many standard containers it can hold.
Practice
A ship that can carry 12,000 TEU is measured by how many ___ it can hold.
Choose one answer.
TEU stands for twenty-foot equivalent unit, a container count. The other options are not what the abbreviation measures.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “TEU”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.