Dictionary

pottlepot en · NOUN

Etymology

From pottle + pot.

Meanings

1. (archaic) A pot or vessel containing two quarts (four pints), especially one used to hold alcohol.
   • […] notably — for a vacuum, and that in a few years the lack of all rational diversions, the pulling down of maypoles, the silencing of all music but psalm-singing, would drive man and woman to try and drown care in the pottlepot. 1905, Mary Catherine Rowsell, The Life-story of Charlotte de la Trémoille: Countess of Derby, page 66:
   • ... and help her with the yeast , and filling the pottlepots of ale out of the tubs. 1848, Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England: From the Norman Conquest, page 122:
   • The largest, or “galonier,” twelve inches high, contains eight pints; the next or “Pottlepot,” about nine inches and a half high, holds four pints; another, eight inches and a half high, a quart; and the smallest, six inches in height, one pint. 1876, William Chaffers, Marks and Monograms on Pottery & Porcelain of the Renaissance and Modern Periods, page 62:
   • Maillotin du Bac seemed determined that, as far as the quality of his favours went, no jealousy should exist between the trencher and the pottlepot. 2020(?), George Payne Rainsford James, Mary of Burgundy: The Revolt of Ghent, Library of Alexandria
   • Barnaby Rich is exceedingly angry with the inventor of the custom, which, however, with a laudable zeal for the honour of his country, he attributes to an Englishman, who, it seems, "had his brains beat out with a pottlepot" for his ingenuity […] 1877, A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: Hamlet. 1877, page 78:
2. (archaic) An alcoholic, a drunkard.
   • It is true that he departed in quest of some Carpenter's Tools, which he declare would do the job quite as well; but, again to my good luck, the carpenter was as Rare a pottlepot as he, and they two took to boiling rum in a calabash and [drinking]. 1862, Temple Bar: A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers, page 307:
   • […] wains—I trust it is only the medicine of the pottlepot, (being the only medicamentum which the beast useth,) which hath caused him to tarry on the road. 1901, Sir Walter Scott, The Abbot: Being The Sequel to The Monastery, Library of Alexandria, →ISBN:
   • "Thou art no man (she saith) —thou art a Pottlepot!" "No man," I saith. "No man!" she saith. And "Pottlepot" thereto! "Thou sleepest like our dog all day; thou drink'st as fishes do." 1894, Austin Dobson, At the Sign of the Lyre, page 210:

Forms