Custom Bottle Openers & Keychains (2024)

FAQs

How did a bottle opener get the name church key? ›

Originally, church keys actually resembled large keys (thus the name) and were used to pry open caps or corks from bottles. Then, when beer cans began being marketed in the 1930s with flat metal covers, the same name, church key, was given to the devices used to open them by piercing them with triangle-shaped holes.

noun. , Slang. a small metal can opener having a sharp triangular pointed end for punching holes in the top of a beverage can, as of beer.

A church key or churchkey is a North American term for various kinds of bottle openers and can openers.

Claw hammer is another word for bottle opener

A claw hammer can also be used. Flip the hammer upside-down and position the claw end (now pointing upward) under the lip. Now carefully peel away the cap with the edge of the claw.

'The expression church key is old in the brewing business,' he wrote. 'I worked in a brewery for about 35 years and everybody carried a bottle opener or church key, perhaps so called because it looked like the top end of the kind of heavy ornate key used to unlock church doors.

Church key

The left end is a can piercer and the right end is a bottle cap lifter. Church key initially referred to a simple hand-operated device for prying the cap (called a "crown cork" or "bottle cap") off a glass bottle; this kind of closure was invented in 1892.

The word church is derived from Old English cirice, "place of assemblage set aside for Christian worship", from the Proto-Germanic kirika. This was probably borrowed via the Gothic from the Greek kyriake (oikia), kyriakon doma, "the Lord's (house)", from kyrios, "ruler, lord".

The term "wine key" came into existence due to the German inventor's last name, Wienke, which is difficult for English speakers to pronounce. When ordering the product from catalogs, the meaning and origins of the new Wienke Corkscrew gradually became lost and it was simply referred to as a "Winekey" or wine key.