Dictionary

pothouse ballad en · NOUN

Etymology

From pothouse + ballad.

Meanings

1. A popular and often political song emerging from and performed in working-class taverns, pubs, and "pothouses" during the 18th and 19th centuries in the British Isles, which served common people by offering social commentary, political satire, and news all in a highly lyrical rhyme with a simple rhyme scheme.
   • We were none of us yet the trumpery heroes that we were shortly to become. Time had not flung its shimmering mantle upon us; or, to speak more precisely, "Clonbrony Wood" and the other pothouse ballads had not yet been written. 1988, Thomas Flanagan, novel: The Tenants of Time chapter 11

Forms