pot
UK /pɒt/ · US /pɑt/ noun, verb
- noun A flat-bottomed vessel (usually metal) used for cooking food, possibly excluding saucepans (see usage notes).
- noun (preceded by definite article) The nominal household cooking vessel, metaphorically standing for the supply of food for a meal, or for the home.
- noun A vessel (usually earthenware) used with a seal for storing food, such as a honeypot.
- noun A vessel used for brewing or serving drinks: a coffee pot or teapot.
- noun A vessel used to hold soil for growing plants, particularly flowers: a flowerpot.
- noun A vessel used for urination and defecation: a chamber pot; (figuratively, slang) a toilet; the lavatory.
- noun A crucible: a melting pot.
- noun (Maine) A pot-shaped trap used for catching lobsters or other seafood: a lobster pot.
- verb To put (something) into a pot. “to pot a plant”
- verb To preserve by bottling or canning. “potted meat”
- verb (electronics) To package a circuit by encasing it in resin.
- verb (snooker, pool, billiards, transitive) To cause a ball to fall into a pocket.
- verb (snooker, pool, billiards, intransitive) To be capable of being potted. “The black ball doesn't pot; the red is in the way.”
- verb (transitive, slang) To shoot with a firearm.
- verb (intransitive, dated, slang) To take a potshot, or haphazard shot, with a firearm.
- verb (transitive, colloquial) To secure; gain; win; bag.
- noun (slang, uncountable) Marijuana.
- noun (slang, electronics) A simple electromechanical device used to control resistance or voltage (often to adjust sound volume) in an electronic device by rotating or sliding when manipulated by a human thumb, screwdriver, etc.
- verb (slang, broadcasting) To fade volume in or out by means of a potentiometer.
Synonyms
cookpot cooking pot can chamber pot potty shitpot chamber chemical toilet commode Cousin John crapper gazunder guzunder honey bucket honeypot Jerry john johnny jordan latrine toilet stool throne potful flowerpot batch deal flock good deal great deal
Etymology
From Middle English pot, potte, from Old English pott (“pot”) and Old French pot (“pot”) (probably from Frankish *pott); both Old English and Frankish from Proto-Germanic *puttaz (“pot”), from Proto-Indo-European *budnós (“a type of vessel”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian Pot (“pot”), Dutch pot (“pot”), German Low German Pott (“pot”), German Pott (“pot”), Swedish potta (“chamber pot”), Icelandic pottur (“tub, pot”), Old Armenian պոյտն (poytn, “pot, earthen pot”). Also, Old Norse pottr (“pot, tub, basin”).
The sense of ruin or deterioration was originally a general allusion to "being chopped up and tossed in a (normally fiery) pot, like a piece of meat" (i.e. to get wasted or done with (by someone)). The 'clean' slang term which was used in reference to toilet rooms and lavatories apparently derives from English chamberpots, although now usually encountered as potty in the context of children's toilet training.
Possibly a shortened form of Mexican Spanish potiguaya or potaguaya (“cannabis leaves”), or potación de guaya (literally “drink of grief”), supposedly denoting a drink of wine or brandy in which marijuana buds were steeped, from pota + de + guaya (see guayar (“to lament”)).
Clipping of potentiometer.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A metallic or earthen vessel, appropriated to any of a great variety of uses, as for boiling meat or vegetables, for holding liquids, for plants, etc.; as, a quart pot; a flower pot; a bean pot.
- noun An earthen or pewter cup for liquors; a mug.
- verb To place or inclose in pots; as: (a) To preserve seasoned in pots. "Potted fowl and fish." Dryden.
- verb To tipple; to drink. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.]
Etymology [Akin to LG. pott, D. pot, Dan. potte, Sw. potta, Icel. pottr, F. pot; of unknown origin.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “pot”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details