hothouse

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hothouse

Where it comes from

From Middle English hothous, equivalent to hot + house.

noun hothouses · hot-house

A heated greenhouse.
Opposite: coldhouse
figuratively An environment in which growth or development is encouraged naturally or artificially; a hotbed. This had given him the strength to leave cadet school at seventeen and volunteer for active service, reach the rank of second lieutenant no later than his hothouse-bred contemporaries, begin his military studies in the General Staff Academy itself, and, still only twenty-five, graduate not only with
An environment full of conflict or plots. As with much of Carsley's reign, England entered this Athens hothouse with sub-plots in the background, this time the nine withdrawals from the squad which was met with a critical public response from the normally strictly-on-message captain Harry Kane.
obsolete A bagnio, or bathing house; a brothel. Let a man ſweat once a weeke in a Hothouſe, and be well rubd and froted with a good plumpe juicie wench, and ſweet linnen, he ſhall ne’re ha’ the Poxe.
A heated room for drying greenware.
A hot state in global climate. Kruban is a tidally-locked Venusian hothouse, its surface perpetually obscured by clouds of sulfur and carbon dioxides.
Similar: greenhouse · Opposite: icehouse

verb hothouses · hothousing · hothoused · hot-house

transitive To provide (a child) with an enriched environment with the aim of stimulating academic development. she had such an exceptional grasp of maths in her first two years at the school theyʼd been hothousing her to sit her GCSE Maths two years early

Translations

Every language

noun environment that encourages development

Français	vivier
Deutsch	Treibhaus, förderliche Umgebung

noun heated greenhouse

日本語	温室 onshitsu
Deutsch	Treibhaus, Gewächshaus, Glashaus, Tepidarium, Warmhaus

noun heated room for drying greenware

Deutsch	Trockenraum

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MLA

"hothouse." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/hothouse. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

hothouse. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/hothouse

Chicago

"hothouse." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/hothouse.

BibTeX

@misc{hothouse_2026,
  title = {hothouse},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/hothouse},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}