Word: pot Part of Speech: verb 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. Pronunciation: /pɒt/, /pɑt/ 1. To put (something) into a pot. Example: to pot a plant 2. To preserve by bottling or canning. Example: potted meat 3. To package a circuit by encasing it in resin. 4. To cause a ball to fall into a pocket. Labels: transitive 5. To be capable of being potted. Labels: intransitive Example: The black ball doesn't pot; the red is in the way. 6. To shoot with a firearm. Labels: slang, transitive Example: 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. Example: Luckily Jenkins — our best shot — was on guard and spotted him and... er... potted him, as I said. Buried him in a shallow grave below stones, so it's unlikely he will be found. 7. To take a potshot, or haphazard shot, with a firearm. Labels: dated, intransitive, slang 8. To secure; gain; win; bag. Labels: colloquial, transitive 9. To send someone to jail, expeditiously. Labels: UK 10. To tipple; to drink. Labels: UK, dialectal, obsolete Example: It is less labour to plough than to pot it. 11. To drain (e.g. sugar of the molasses) in a perforated cask. Labels: transitive Example: Too much temper likewise prevents the melasses from separating from the sugar when it is potted or put into the hogshead 12. To seat a person, usually a young child, on a potty or toilet, typically during toilet teaching. Labels: UK, transitive Example: 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. Example: 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. 13. To apply a plaster cast to a broken limb. Labels: East-Midlands 14. To catch (a fish, eel, etc) via a pot. Example: Most Fishneck watermen oystered in winter, using the same small skiffs from which they potted crabs in summer. Example: 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. 15. To score (a drop goal). Labels: transitive Example: With five minutes to go, Trevathan potted his second goal, and finally it was the fullback Taylor who scored. Example: He played for the Oxford Australians against their Cambridge counterparts, and even potted a few goals at picnic Rugby matches.