pot

pot¹ pot, jar

Pronunciation

• /pɔt/^[1]

Forms

pot m (plural potten, diminutive potje n)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the container is inherited from Middle Dutch pot, inherited from Old Dutch *pot, inherited from Proto-Germanic *puttaz (“pot, jar”), in the chain Wiktionary gives; the EWN calls its origin unclear.^[2][1] The same word is Middle Low German pot (also put), Old Frisian pot and Old English pott (modern English pot), and a Rhineland form is the source of German Pott.^[2][3] Old Norse pottr was taken from Low German.^[2][4]

Because the same word exists in Romance, as Old French pot (1120), many scholars have taken it as a borrowing.^[2][4] Frings held that Germanic took it from Romance, and the Romance word is generally traced to a pre-Celtic substrate word ⟨*pott-⟩; the Germanic word may then have come straight from a substrate language.^[2] De Vries reports the proposal of a common source Vulgar Latin *pōttus, which Frings linked with Latin pōtus (“drink”), and Nörrenberg's phonetic and semantic objections, which led him to see the French word as a loan from Germanic.^[3] Franck–Van Wijk and Van Haeringen also held the borrowing from Germanic into Romance at least as likely;^[5][6] Franck–Van Wijk explained the Germanic form ⟨*putta-⟩ as “round, swollen object”, in ablaut with puit.^[5][6] Orel sees the word as a cognate of, or rather an early borrowing from, buttis (“barrel”).^[7] The Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal finds no certainty either way and considers a sound-imitative root.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is probably already found in the Old Dutch place name potflit, literally “Pot stream”, a brook at Antwerp recorded in 1148.^[2] Middle Dutch pot appears around 1240 in the compound potte makere “potter”.^[2][8] The oldest record in the VMNW, from the Lower Rhine in 1250, is a recipe that tells the reader to put a mixture with a little wine in a pot and boil it.^[9][2]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th century pot was a vessel of earthenware, stone or metal: a cooking pot, a jug for drink (enen pot wines “a pot of wine”, Holland, 1280), and by metonymy the food cooked in it.^[9][2] Early on it also came to mean a common fund: Bruges texts of 1299 and 1301 speak of payments ten ghemenen potte “to the common pot”.^[9][2] The sense “money saved by one person” is recorded in 1599, and “stake in a game” from 1855–1857.^[2] The derived verb potten “to put in a pot”, said of money, is found in 1555.^[2]

The pot gave many phrases.^[10][11] Zo dicht als een pot “as tight as a pot” was said in the 17th century of a person who can keep quiet, beside the older kannedicht.^[10] Today Van Dale has op ieder potje past een dekseltje, there is a partner for everyone, and the chamber-pot sense in hij kan de pot op, a curt refusal.^[11] Van Sterkenburg counts de pot op! among modern curses, and the oath forms potjandorie and potdikke contain a softened form of God.^[12]

Dutch or Low German lent the word to the Scandinavian languages: Danish and Norwegian potte “pot”, Swedish potta “chamber pot” and pott “stake in a game”, and Finnish potti through Swedish.^[13] It was also borrowed into Indonesian pot “earthenware pot; chamber pot”, and lives on in Papiamentu pòchi, Berbice Dutch poto and Afrikaans pot.^[13][1]

Timeline

• c. 1240 – Middle Dutch potte makere “potter” is the first record of the word.^[2][8]
• 1250 – A recipe from the Lower Rhine tells the reader to boil a mixture in einen pot.^[9][14]
• 1280 – A Holland text mentions enen pot wines “a pot of wine”.^[9]
• 1299 – Pot “common fund” appears in Bruges.^[9][2]
• 1555 – The verb potten “to put (money) in a pot” is recorded.^[2]
• 1599 – Pot “money saved by one person” is recorded.^[2]
• 1681 – A text explains a thing that shuts soo digt, als een Pot.^[4]
• 1855–1857 – Pot “stake in a game” is first recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pot or jar with ears or a handle, for cooking or keeping things in.^[11][1]
2. A jar or glass with its contents, such as a jar of pickles.^[11]
3. (Belgium) A cooking pot.^[1]
4. A chamber pot;^[11][1] (Netherlands, vulgar) the toilet.^[11][1]
5. (informal) The kitty: the stake in a game, or money saved together.^[11][1]
6. A small hole in the ground used in a game of marbles.^[11]

Word family

• potten
• oppotten
• doofpot
• hutspot
• stamppot
• spaarpot
• bloempot
• kamerpot
• lollepot
• potas
• potlood
• potvis
• potdicht
• potdoof
• potdeksel
• pottenbakker
• pottenkijker
• brompot

pot² lesbian

Pronunciation

• /pɔt/^[1]

Forms

pot f (plural potten, diminutive potje n)^[1]

Etymology

The word for a lesbian is a clipping from Dutch lollepot.^{[2][1][15][16]} That word meant “lustful woman; woman who has indecent relations with women” in 1906, an extension, probably with the idea of a woman who warms herself with something other than a man, of ⟨lollepot⟩ “stone pot with holes in the lid, filled with embers, used as a heater mainly by women”.^[2] This in turn comes from a more general ⟨lollepot⟩ “small heater, glow pan”, recorded in 1567, whose second part is the word for a container (homograph 1).^[2]

Warming the thighs and genitals in this way was called lollen in 1599, and ⟨lollen als de olde vrouwen⟩ “to warm oneself like the old women” is found in 1573.^[2] The verb is probably an extension of “to sleep, doze”, and probably sound-expressive in origin.^[2] De Coster gives ⟨bij de lollepot zitten⟩ “to sit by the fire pot”, that is, to gossip like old women.^[16]

Semantic evolution

The clipped form appears in the 1960s: De Coster quotes een Surinaamse pot from a novel of 1966, and Reinsma a 1967 sentence on a singer who is openlijk pot “openly a lesbian”.^[16][15] The EWN and Van der Sijs date the word from 1970.^[2][14] Since the 1970s militant feminists have also used pot of themselves as a reclaimed name.^[16] Derivatives include potteus “lesbian” (adjective) and the scornful pottenkot for a women's bar.^[16]

Timeline

• 1966 – Een Surinaamse pot appears in the second book of Jan Cremer's Ik Jan Cremer.^[16]
• 1967 – A newspaper text calls a singer openlijk pot.^[15]
• 1970 – The word is recorded, the first date the EWN and Van der Sijs 2001 give.^[2][14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (informal, often derogatory) A lesbian, a dyke.^[11][1][2]