pot
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pot¹
- /pɒt/ UK
- /pɑt/ US
Rhymes with -ɒt
Where it comes from
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, jar; tub”), of unknown origin.
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”) (from Old Norse pottr (“pot, tub, basin”)), and perhaps Armenian պույտ (puyt, “pot”) (from Old Armenian պոյտն (poytn, “pot, earthen pot”)) and Albanian bocë (“bottle, decanter”), related either via late Proto-Indo-European or as a Wanderwort. Middle English pot gave rise to Irish pota, Scottish Gaelic poit, and Welsh pot through borrowing. Further cognates in Romance languages are via Late Latin pottus /pōtus, pottum, which either was borrowed from the Germanic word or, less likely, is its source; see more on the Proto-Germanic entry.
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.
noun pots
-
A flat-bottomed vessel (usually metal) used for cooking food, possibly excluding saucepans (see usage notes).
Similar: cookpot, cooking pot
-
The 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.
Similar: cookpot, cooking pot
- A vessel (usually earthenware) used with a seal for storing food, such as a honeypot.
- A vessel used for brewing or serving drinks: a coffee pot or teapot.
- A vessel used to hold soil for growing plants, particularly flowers: a flowerpot. 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 f
-
A vessel used for urination and defecation: a chamber pot; (figuratively, slang) a toilet; the lavatory.
Shit or get off the pot.
Similar: can, chamber pot, potty, shitpot, chamber, chemical toilet, commode, Cousin John, crapper, gazunder, guzunder, honey bucket
- A crucible: a melting pot.
-
A pot-shaped trap used for catching lobsters or other seafood: a lobster pot.
Similar: lobster pot, lobster trap
- A pot-shaped metal or earthenware extension of a flue above the top of a chimney: a chimney pot.
- A perforated cask for draining sugar.
- An 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."
- A 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.
- Pothole, sinkhole, vertical cave. Rowten Pot
- A shallow hole used in certain games played with marbles. The marbles placed in it are called potsies.
- Ruin or deterioration. After his arrest, his prospects went to pot.
- Any of various traditional units of volume notionally based on the capacity of a pot.
- 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 favorite: a heavily-backed horse.
- 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 "Luc
- 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.
- A plaster cast.
- Alternative form of pott: a former size of paper, 12.5 × 15 inches.
verb pots · potting · potted
- 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.
- To cause a ball to fall into a pocket.
- To be capable of being potted. The black ball doesn't pot; the red is in the way.
- 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.
- To take a potshot, or haphazard shot, with a firearm.
- To secure; gain; win; bag.
- To send someone to jail, expeditiously.
- To tipple; to drink. It is less labour to plough than to pot it.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- To score (a drop goal). With five minutes to go, Trevathan potted his second goal, and finally it was the fullback Taylor who scored.
pot²
- /pɒt/ UK
- /pɑt/ US
Rhymes with -ɒt
Where it comes from
Possibly a shortened form of Mexican Spanish potiguaya or potaguaya (“cannabis leaves”), from pota + de + guaya (see guayar (“to lament”)), or from potación de guaya (literally “drink of grief”), supposedly denoting a drink of wine or brandy in which marijuana buds were steeped.
pot³
- /pɒt/ UK
- /pɑt/ US
Rhymes with -ɒt
Where it comes from
Clipping of potentiometer.
noun pots
- 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 pots · potting · potted
- 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.”
pot⁴
- /pɒt/ UK
- /pɑt/ US
Rhymes with -ɒt
noun pots
- Clipping of potion
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: batch, stack, marihuana, ganja, marijuana, smoke, cannabis, potful, flowerpot, toilet, commode, crapper, potty, weed, hatful, dope
Translations
Every language
noun vessel for cooking or storing food etc.
| Español | olla, marmita, pote, perol (semispherical) |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 단지 danji, 독 dok, 냄비 naembi |
| 日本語 | 鍋 nabe |
| 中文 | 鍋 /锅 guō, 壺 /壶 hú |
| हिन्दी | बरतन bartan, मटका maṭkā, पतीला patīlā |
| Kiswahili | chungu |
| Português | pote, panela |
| Français | pot, marmite, chaudron |
| Deutsch | Topf |
| Italiano | pentola, vaso, marmitta, pignatta |
| Ελληνικά | χύτρα chýtra, κατσαρόλα katsaróla |
| Română | oală |
| Русский | горшо́к goršók, ба́нка bánka, кастрю́ля kastrjúlja |
| Tiếng Việt | nồi |
| العربية | قِدْر qidr, إِنَاء ʔināʔ, طَنْجَرَة ṭanjara |
| עברית | סִיר sir |
noun protruding belly
| Português | pança |
|---|
noun cue sports: act of causing a ball to fall into a pocket
| Português | caçapa |
|---|
verb put (something) into a pot
| Deutsch | etwas in einen Topf werfen |
|---|
Talk about this word "pot." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/pot. Accessed 5 Nov. 2026. pot. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/pot "pot." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 5, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/pot.Cite this
@misc{pot_2026,
title = {pot},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/pot},
urldate = {2026-11-05}
}
