pot
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A flat-bottomed vessel used for cooking food, possibly excluding saucepans.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pahtIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɑt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A flat-bottomed vessel (usually metal) used for cooking food, possibly excluding saucepans.
A vessel (usually earthenware) used with a seal for storing food, such as a honeypot.
A vessel used for brewing or serving drinks: a coffeepot or teapot.
A vessel used to hold soil for growing plants, particularly flowers: a flowerpot.
Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
A crucible: a melting pot.
verb
Plant in a pot
To put (something) into a pot.
transitive
To drain (e.g. sugar of the molasses) in a perforated cask.
transitivebritish
To seat a person, usually a young child, on a potty or toilet, typically during toilet teaching.
To catch (a fish, eel, etc) via a pot.
chiefly east midlands
To apply a plaster cast to a broken limb.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A flat-bottomed vessel (usually metal) used for cooking food, possibly excluding saucepans.
Used this way, pot is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a nautical use: it is standard at sea and largely unfamiliar ashore.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Sailing/maritime
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use pot
- “She cooked a delicious stew in a large pot on the stove.”
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.