pot

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points: 5
Words With Friends: 6
Letters: 3

Pronunciation

/pɒt/(UK)

See all 2 pronunciations

/pɒt/(UK) · /pɑt/(US)

Definition of pot

44 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

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

See all 44 definitions

noun

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

“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.”
Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly

“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.”
Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly

“Shit or get off the pot.”
““Clinton,” Gail cried from outside, “are you going to sit on the pot all day?””
“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.”
Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
(Maine)Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
(obsolete)Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly

“"So kindly keep the vainglorious enumeration of your pots for the benefit of those village idiots who compose your particular set of boozing companions."”
(Australia, Tasmania)Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly

“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.”
Pothole, sinkhole, vertical cave.

“Rowten Pot”
A shallow hole used in certain games played with marbles. The marbles placed in it are called potsies.
(slang, uncountable)Ruin or deterioration.

“After his arrest, his prospects went to pot.”
(historical)Any of various traditional units of volume notionally based on the capacity of a pot.
(historical)An 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...”
A pot-shaped non-conducting (usually ceramic) stand that supports an electrified rail while insulating it from the ground.
The 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.”
An allocation of money for a particular purpose.

“a pension pot”
“a savings pot”
(UK, slang)A favorite: a heavily-backed horse.
(abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, slang)Clipping of potbelly (“a pot-shaped belly, a paunch”).

“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.”
(abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, slang)Clipping 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.”
(East-Midlands, Yorkshire)A plaster cast.
(alt-of, alternative, historical)Alternative form of pott: a former size of paper, 12.5 × 15 inches.
(slang, uncountable)Marijuana.

“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!”
(slang)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.
(abbreviation, alt-of, clipping)Clipping of potion.

verb

To put (something) into a pot.

“to pot a plant”
To preserve by bottling or canning.

“potted meat”
To package a circuit by encasing it in resin.
(transitive)To cause a ball to fall into a pocket.
(intransitive)To be capable of being potted.

“The black ball doesn't pot; the red is in the way.”
(transitive)To 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.”
(dated, intransitive)To take a pot shot, or haphazard shot, with a firearm.
(colloquial, transitive)To secure; gain; win; bag.
(British)To send someone to jail, expeditiously.
(UK, dialectal, obsolete)To tipple; to drink.

“It is less labour to plough than to pot it.”
(transitive)To 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”
(British, transitive)To seat a person, usually a young child, on a potty or toilet, typically during toilet teaching.

“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
(East-Midlands)To apply a plaster cast to a broken limb.
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.”
“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.”
(transitive)To score (a drop goal).

“With five minutes to go, Trevathan potted his second goal, and finally it was the fullback Taylor who scored.”
“He played for the Oxford Australians against their Cambridge counterparts, and even potted a few goals at picnic Rugby matches.”
(slang)To 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.””

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

See full etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *puttaz Old English pott Proto-Germanic *puttaz Frankish *pottder. Vulgar Latin pottum Old French potbor. Middle English pot English pot 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.