pot
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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3 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "pot", 3-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "pot" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "pot" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
pot is aEnglishnoun. It means: A flat-bottomed vessel (usually metal) used for cooking food, possibly excluding saucepans (see usage notes). Pronounced /pɒt/. It ranks #3,647 in English word frequency. Often confused with PP and PR.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pot |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pɒt/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #3,647 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for pot is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pɒt/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,647 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 24 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for pot in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PP", "PR", "pt", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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 S… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is pot, spelled P-O-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A flat-bottomed vessel (usually metal) used for cooking food, possibly excluding saucepans (see usage notes).
- 2Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
- 3Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
- 4Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
- 5Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
- 6Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
- 7Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
- 8Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
- 9Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
- 10Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
- 11Various similar open-topped vessels, particularly
- 12Pothole, sinkhole, vertical cave.
- 13A shallow hole used in certain games played with marbles. The marbles placed in it are called potsies.
- 14Ruin or deterioration.
- 15Any of various traditional units of volume notionally based on the capacity of a pot.
- 16An iron hat with a broad brim worn as a helmet.
- 17A pot-shaped non-conducting (usually ceramic) stand that supports an electrified rail while insulating it from the ground.
- 18The money available to be won in a hand of poker or a round of other games of chance; (figuratively) any sum of money being used as an enticement.
- 19An allocation of money for a particular purpose.
- 20A favorite: a heavily-backed horse.
- 21Clipping of potbelly (“a pot-shaped belly, a paunch”).
- 22Clipping of potshot (“a haphazard shot; an easy or cheap shot”).
- 23A plaster cast.
- 24Alternative form of pott: a former size of paper, 12.5 × 15 inches.
Etymology
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.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #3,647 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: