pothouse ballad

noun

A popular and often political song emerging from and performed in working-class taverns, pubs, and "pothouses" during the 18th and 19th centuries in the British Isles, which served common people by offering social commentary, political satire, and news all in a highly lyrical rhyme with a simple rhyme scheme.

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Meanings

nounpothouse ballad (plural pothouse ballads)

plural pothouse ballads

  1. A popular and often political song emerging from and performed in working-class taverns, pubs, and "pothouses" during the 18th and 19th centuries in the British Isles, which served common people by offering social commentary, political satire, and news all in a highly lyrical rhyme with a simple rhyme scheme.

    We were none of us yet the trumpery heroes that we were shortly to become. Time had not flung its shimmering mantle upon us; or, to speak more precisely, "Clonbrony Wood" and the other pothouse ballads had not yet been written.

    1988, Thomas Flanagan, novel: The Tenants of Time chapter 11

Origin

From pothouse + ballad.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

pothouse ballad. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pothouse%20ballad

MLA

“pothouse ballad.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pothouse%20ballad. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pothouse ballad,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pothouse%20ballad.

Source: pothouse ballad on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.