pottery

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French poterie,^[2][3] inherited from Old French poterie,^[2][4][5][6] from potier (“potter”),^[4][5][7][6] from pot (“pot”) with the suffix -ier,^[3] later with -erie.^[2] In Old French the word meant the art of making pots by 1260 and a potter's workshop in the 13th century, and a piece of pottery from 1337.^[2] The OED compares the post-classical Latin potaria and poteria, a potter's workshop, recorded in British sources from 1086 and about 1270, and thinks the English word was perhaps later also formed afresh from pot and -ery, like crockery.^[2][7] In Anglo-Norman the word for a potter, a maker or seller of earthenware vessels, is recorded from the early 12th century.^[8] Partridge thinks that the Old French noun probably comes from a Vulgar Latin derivative of a Latin verb meaning to drink;^[9] Ayto takes it from Medieval Latin *pottus, perhaps an alteration of pōtus (“drinking cup; drink”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A potter's workshop, a place where earthenware is made: 1480, in Caxton's “Table Prouffytable Lernynge”;^[2] Etymonline dates it to the late 15th century,^[4] and Dictionary.com to 1475–85.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The word passed from the workshop to the craft: the art of making earthenware, ceramics, is recorded in the OED from 1601, in Holland's translation of Pliny,^[2] though Etymonline finds it only from 1727 and the Shorter Oxford in the early 18th century.^[4][7] As a mass noun for the pots and dishes themselves it is recorded from 1771,^[2] or 1785 according to Etymonline;^[4] a count use, a single piece of pottery, is now obsolete.^[2] From 1795, the Potteries has been the area around Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, the centre of the English pottery industry.^[2][7] The word is used attributively, of things made of baked clay, from the mid 19th century.^[7] In Yorkshire, Lancashire and the West Country dialect, pottery-mould was a block of plaster or pipeclay used to whiten hearthstones, and pottery-ware was earthenware.^[12][7]

Timeline

• 1480 – a potter's workshop.^[2]
• 1601 – the art of making earthenware.^[2]
• 1771 – pots and other articles of fired clay.^[2]
• 1795 – the Potteries, the district around Stoke-on-Trent.^[2]
• mid 19th century – attributive, made of earthenware.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Pots, dishes and other objects made of clay hardened by firing, especially earthenware as distinct from porcelain and stoneware: Shards of pottery were found near the old well.
2. The art or craft of making such objects; ceramics: He took up pottery after he retired.
3. A place where such objects are made; a potter's workshop or factory.
4. the Potteries: the district around Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, home of the English pottery industry.

Related words

• potter
• potter's clay
• potter's field
• potter's wheel
• pot
• potash
• pottage

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
10. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)