hothouse
noun, verb
Forms hothouses hothousing hothoused hot-house
- noun A heated greenhouse.
- noun (figurative) An environment in which growth or development is encouraged naturally or artificially; a hotbed.
- noun An environment full of conflict or plots.
- noun (obsolete) A bagnio, or bathing house; a brothel.
- noun A heated room for drying greenware.
- noun (climatology) A hot state in global climate.
- verb (transitive) To provide (a child) with an enriched environment with the aim of stimulating academic development.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English hothous, equivalent to hot + house.
Webster’s 1913
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “hothouse”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details