pot

plural pots

1. A flat-bottomed vessel (usually metal) used for cooking food, possibly excluding saucepans (see usage notes).

   Synonyms: cookpot, cooking pot

   1. preceded by definite articleThe nominal household cooking vessel, metaphorically standing for the supply of food for a meal, or for the home.

      Hunting in the year 1000 was still a democratic pastime. Every free-born Anglo-Saxon had the right to enter the forest and bring home game for the pot.

      1999, Robert Lacey, Danny Danziger, The Year 1000: What life was like at the turn of The First Millennium, London: Abacus, published 2000, page 143

      Synonyms: cookpot, cooking pot

2. Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
   1. A vessel (usually earthenware) used with a seal for storing food, such as a honeypot.
   2. A vessel used for brewing or serving drinks: a coffee pot or teapot.
   3. A vessel used to hold soil for growing plants, particularly flowers: a flowerpot.

      1 more example

      He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.

      1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   4. A vessel used for urination and defecation: a chamber pot; (figuratively, slang) a toilet; the lavatory.

      Shit or get off the pot.

      3 more examples

      “Clinton,” Gail cried from outside, “are you going to sit on the pot all day?”

      2011, Ben Zeller, Secrets of Beaver Creek, page 204

      Near bedtime, about 10 p.m. or so, I sit on the pot. My “routine” is at night so as to shorten the morning get readies and start work on time. Sometimes the p.m. pot routine is successful, sometimes not. I can only blame myself, of course, when the big event doesn’t occur. I need to drink more water during the day.

      2011 December 27, Ken Jacuzzi with Diane Holloway, “This Is Your Life, Ken Jacuzzi!”, in Jacuzzi: A Father’s Invention to Ease a Son’s Pain, Bloomington, Ind.: iUniverse, →ISBN, part III (Learning, Marriage, and Stuff), page 385

      Alfred Hitchcock once told François Truffaut he wanted to make a film that would examine a city entirely through food and, unusually, waste. […] Samuel Beckett expressed this artistic vision on a more intimate scale. “Dish and pot, dish and pot, these are the poles,” his narrator says in “Malone Dies.” The dish, we discuss freely: Food, in literature and elsewhere, is part of what we talk about when we talk about culture. The pot, at the other end of the alimentary canal, remains a transgressive topic.

      2023 June 26, Dwight Garner, “Let’s Talk About the Bathroom Scene”, in The New York Times Book Review, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 Jun 2023

      Synonyms: can, chamber pot, potty, shitpot, can, chamber, chamber pot, chemical toilet

   5. A crucible: a melting pot.
   6. MaineA pot-shaped trap used for catching lobsters or other seafood: a lobster pot.

      Synonyms: lobster pot, lobster trap

   7. A pot-shaped metal or earthenware extension of a flue above the top of a chimney: a chimney pot.
   8. A perforated cask for draining sugar.
   9. obsoleteAn earthen or pewter cup or mug used for drinking liquor.

      "So kindly keep the vainglorious enumeration of your pots for the benefit of those village idiots who compose your particular set of boozing companions."

      1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 85

   10. AustraliaTasmaniaVictoriaA glass of beer in Australia whose size varies regionally but is typically around 10 fl oz (285 mL).

       There are plenty of pubs and bars all over Australia (serving beer in schooners – 425ml or middies/pots ~285ml), and if you don′t fancy those you can drink in wine bars, pleasant beer gardens, or with friends at home.

       2009, Deborah Penrith et al., Live & Work in Australia, page 187

       Synonyms: middy, schooner

3. archaic except in place namesPothole, sinkhole, vertical cave.

   Rowten Pot

4. A shallow hole used in certain games played with marbles. The marbles placed in it are called potsies.
5. slanguncountableRuin or deterioration.

   After his arrest, his prospects went to pot.

6. historicalAny of various traditional units of volume notionally based on the capacity of a pot.
7. historicalAn iron hat with a broad brim worn as a helmet.

   The pot is an iron hat with broad brims: there are many under the denomination in the Tower, said to have been taken from the French...

   1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 12

8. rail transportA pot-shaped non-conducting (usually ceramic) stand that supports an electrified rail while insulating it from the ground.
9. card gamesThe money available to be won in a hand of poker or a round of other games of chance; (figuratively) any sum of money being used as an enticement.

   No one's interested. You need to sweeten the pot.

   Synonyms: kitty, pool

10. An allocation of money for a particular purpose.

    a pension pot

    1 more example

    a savings pot

11. UKslanghobbiesA favorite: a heavily-backed horse.
12. abbreviationclippingslangClipping of potbelly (“a pot-shaped belly, a paunch”).

    1 more example

    Fabienne: I wish I had a pot. Butch: You were lookin' in the mirror and you wish you had some pot? Fabienne: A pot. A pot belly. Pot bellies are sexy. Butch: Well you should be happy, 'cause you do. Fabienne: Shut up, Fatso! I don't have a pot! I have a bit of a tummy, like Madonna when she did "Lucky Star". It's not the same thing.

    1994, Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction

13. abbreviationclippingslangClipping of potshot (“a haphazard shot; an easy or cheap shot”).

    England were shipping penalties at an alarming rate - five in the first 15 minutes alone - and with Wilkinson missing three long-distance pots of his own in the first 20 minutes, the alarm bells began to ring for Martin Johnson's men.

    2011 October 1, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland”, in BBC Sport

14. East MidlandsYorkshireA plaster cast.
15. alternativehistoricalAlternative form of pott: a former size of paper, 12.5 × 15 inches.

present singular third person pots · participle present potting · participle past potted · past potted

1. To put (something) into a pot.

   to pot a plant

2. To preserve by bottling or canning.

   potted meat

3. businessTo package a circuit by encasing it in resin.
4. transitiveball gamesTo cause a ball to fall into a pocket.
5. intransitiveball gamesTo be capable of being potted.

   The black ball doesn't pot; the red is in the way.

6. slangtransitiveTo shoot with a firearm.

   When hunted, it [the jaguar] takes refuge in trees, and this habit is well known to hunters, who pursue it with dogs and pot it when treed.

   1897, Encyclopaedia of Sport

   1 more example

   Luckily Jenkins — our best shot — was on guard and spotted him and... er... potted him, as I said. Buried him in a shallow grave below stones, so it's unlikely he will be found.

   2005, John Wilcox, The Road To Kandahar

7. datedintransitiveslangTo take a potshot, or haphazard shot, with a firearm.
8. colloquialtransitiveTo secure; gain; win; bag.
9. UKTo send someone to jail, expeditiously.
10. UKdialectalobsoleteTo tipple; to drink.

    It is less labour to plough than to pot it.

    1623, Owen Feltham, Resolves: Divine, Moral, Political

11. transitiveTo drain (e.g. sugar of the molasses) in a perforated cask.

    Too much temper likewise prevents the melasses from separating from the sugar when it is potted or put into the hogshead

    1793, Bryan Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies

12. UKtransitiveTo seat a person, usually a young child, on a potty or toilet, typically during toilet teaching.

    Do not make the mistake of potting your baby as early as possible, but wait until she gives the signal that she is aware that puddles are somehow to do with her.

    2004, Joan Gomez, Coping with Incontinence, →ISBN, page 33

    3 more examples

    Ideally the best Ideally the best way of tackling the problem of toilet training, is to 'pot' your child at set intervals when he is at home, even though he may no longer be a baby, thus establishing a regular routine instead of one at odd intervals.

    1975, Nancie R. Finnie, Handling the Young Cerebral Palsied Child, →ISBN, page 75

    If you leave out this “catching" stage altogether and start proper toilet training at, say, eighteen months you will only have to pot your baby about 2000 times for the same effect.

    1978, Penelope Leach, Your Baby & Child from Birth to Age Five, →ISBN, page 225

    Of course, if at any stage your child takes a violent dislike to the pot, then I would put it away for a few weeks and then try again, but if the pot is very comfortable, your attitude is calm and you don't over-pot your child (put him on the pot too often or talk about the pot too much), this shouldn't happen.

    2012, Nanny Smith, Nina Grunfeld, Nanny Knows Best: Successful Potty Training, →ISBN

13. East MidlandsTo apply a plaster cast to a broken limb.
14. To catch (a fish, eel, etc) via a pot.

    Most Fishneck watermen oystered in winter, using the same small skiffs from which they potted crabs in summer.

    1986, Carolyn Ellis, Fisher Folk: Two Communities on Chesapeake Bay, University Press of Kentucky, →ISBN, page 77

    1 more example

    Potting Eels: Except for the mature neshaws, Vineyard eels were potted (caught by pots) in September and October. […] When eeling was good, each pot would catch 25 to 100 pounds of neshaws; some pots would be filled to capacity.

    1994, The Dukes County Intelligencer, volumes 36-37, page 131

15. transitiveball gamesTo score (a drop goal).

    With five minutes to go, Trevathan potted his second goal, and finally it was the fullback Taylor who scored.

    1967, Arthur H. Carman, Ranfurly Shield Rugby, page 139

    1 more example

    He played for the Oxford Australians against their Cambridge counterparts, and even potted a few goals at picnic Rugby matches.

    1998, Geoffrey Serle: In Tribute, page 20

1. slanguncountableMarijuana.

   The way we figure it, ma'am, if everybody walked around naked, smoked pot and listened to rock'n'roll, there wouldn't be any more wars!

   1968 July, Shel Silverstein, “Silverstein's Hippies”, in Playboy Magazine, page 189

   Synonyms: bhang, benj, boo, broccoli, bud, buddha, cannabis, cheeba

plural pots

1. slangbusinessA 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.

present singular third person pots · participle present potting · participle past potted · past potted

1. slangbroadcastingTo fade volume in or out by means of a potentiometer.

   While the announcer is talking, the select switch on the mixing board for the microphone input is selected, and the microphone is “potted up.”

   1999, A Broadcast Engineering Tutorial for Non-engineers, page 23

plural pots

1. abbreviationclippingroleplaying gamesvideo gamesClipping of potion.