See also: flower pot and flower-pot

English

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Meillandine rose in a terracotta flowerpot

Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From flower +‎ pot.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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flowerpot (plural flowerpots)

  1. A pot filled with soil in which plants are grown.
    • 1653, William Basse, “Clio, or The First Muse; in 9 Eglogues in Honor of 9 Vertues. As It was in His Dayes Intended. [Munday. Laurinella. Eglogue. Of True and Chast Love.]”, in J[ohn] P[ayne] C[ollier], editor, The Pastorals and Other Workes of William Basse. [] (Miscellaneous Tracts, Temp. Eliz. & Jac. I), [London: s.n.], published 1870, →OCLC, page 14:
      O Laurinella! little doſt thou wot
      How fraile a flower thou doſt ſo highly prize:
      Beauty's the flower, but love the flower-pot
      That muſt preſerve it, els it quickly dyes.
    • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, “Job Has a Presentiment”, in She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 247:
      I hope you will think kindly of my whitened bones, and never have anything more to do with Greek writing on flower-pots, sir, if I may make so bold as to say so.
    • 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider []”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, [], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter I (Anarchy), pages 377–378:
      Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with (by way of local color) on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.

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