potter

Pluralpotters

Formspotters, pottering, pottered

1. 1
   nouncountable

   Someone whose craft or trade is making pots and other ceramic ware.

   The potter shaped a tall vase on her wheel, then set it aside to dry before firing.

   The town has been home to potters since the clay pits opened two centuries ago.

   Similarceramicist, ceramist

   Note

   The trade name is old: Old English pottere, pot plus -er, is found in placenames, and Anglo-Norman poter and Old French potier helped shape it. The verb for pottering about is a separate word that only looks related.

2. 2
   verbBritishintransitive

   To move slowly or aimlessly, often with about or around.

   On sunny mornings he likes to potter down to the docks and watch the boats come in.

   She pottered around the market for an hour without buying anything.

   Similarwander, amble, stroll, dawdle, saunter

   Oppositehurry, rush

   Note

   About and around give the drifting a setting. In P. G. Wodehouse's Leave It to Psmith (1923), a dreamy, absent-minded man potters about the garden all the time, and the phrase keeps that mildness: slow movement with no destination in mind.

3. 3
   verbBritishintransitive

   To act in a vague, unmotivated way, fussing over small and unimportant tasks.

   He spent the morning pottering in the shed, mending things that weren't broken.

   I'll just potter with the paperwork until the others arrive.

   Similartinker, fiddle, fuss, dabble

   Note

   The ending marks repeated action on an old verb pote, to poke, and British English uses the result for small jobs picked up and put down without much aim. It is often heard in the -ing form with in or with: pottering in the shed, pottering with the paperwork.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   Someone who plants flowers, seedlings, or other plants in pots, especially as a job in a nursery.

   The nursery hires extra potters every spring to move seedlings into larger containers.

   A skilled potter can set out hundreds of geraniums in a single morning.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A person who peddles crockery or earthenware.

   A potter with a cart full of jugs and plates stopped at every farm along the road.

   The village saw the same potters every spring, traveling men who bought their crockery wholesale and sold it from door to door.

   Similarpeddler, hawker

   Note

   Older writing counts this potter among the people of the road: Thomas De Quincey, in the Edinburgh Literary Gazette (1829), sets potters beside gipsies, tinkers and strolling players. In such lists a modern reader should not picture the maker at the wheel.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A person who preserves meat or other foods in pots.

   The potter sealed each jar of spiced beef under a layer of melted butter.

   Before winter the inn's potters filled dozens of crocks with shrimp and ham.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   Another name for Pseudemys rubriventris, the red-bellied terrapin, a turtle with a reddish underside.

   A potter slid off the log, flashing the reddish plates of its underside.

   In the Chesapeake marshes, potters bask on fallen trees through the warm months.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   The chicken turtle, Deirochelys reticularia.

   A potter stretched its long, striped neck out of the ditch to snap at a passing insect.

   After the spring rains, potters leave the drying ponds and wander overland in search of water.

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