pots

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of pot.

   The chef arranged copper pots above the stove.

   They sold hand-painted ceramic pots at the market stall.

   Note

   An ordinary -s plural that covers every kind of vessel the singular names: cooking pots, sealed storage jars, teapots and coffeepots, flowerpots, crucibles. In the closed compounds the plural goes at the end, as in teapots and flowerpots. The same spelling also serves the verb form (she pots the seedlings) and the informal "lots of" (pots of money), so only context tells them apart.

2. 2
   nouncolloquialplural

   A large quantity of something, especially money or time.

   The investors poured pots of cash into the new venture.

   He spends pots of time tinkering with old motorcycles.

   Similarlots, loads, heaps, tons, masses

   Note

   This use exists only in the plural, and it is followed by of: pots of money, pots of time. It works like lots of, but it has no singular partner, so a single pot never carries this loose "great deal" meaning. It belongs to relaxed, enthusiastic speech. In formal writing, a great deal of or considerable does the same job without the chatty tone.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of pot.

   The gardener pots each seedling before the first frost.

   In snooker, she pots the black to win the frame.

   Note

   A verb form with a surprisingly wide reach. A gardener pots seedlings, a cook pots preserves, an engineer pots a circuit in resin, a snooker player pots the black, and a hunter pots a bird with a gun. Nearly all of these take a direct object. The rarer intransitive use runs the other way and means "can be potted", so the thing itself is the subject.

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