| 释义 |
▪ I. potter, n.1|ˈpɒtə(r)|
[Late OE. pottere, f. pot n.1 + -er1.]
1. a. A maker of pots, or of earthenware vessels.
a1100in Birch Cart. Sax. III. 49 Of stenges heale on potteres leᵹe. 1284Calr. Inq. P.M. (1906) II. 322 [The manor..including 36s. 8d. rent of assize of the burgesses of Midhurst called] potteresgavel. a1300Cursor M. 22937 (Cott.) Als potter wit pottes dos Quen he his neu wessel fordos. a1340Hampole Psalter ii. 9 As vessel of þe pottere þou sall þaim breke. 1413Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton 1483) iv. xxxvii. 84 More helply is a Carpenter or a potter than an Organer, a peynter or an ymager. c1440Promp. Parv. 411/1 Pottare, ollarius, figulus. 1597Middleton Wisdom Solomon xv. 7 Thou a potter art, Tempering soft earth, making the clay to bow. 1686A. Horneck Crucif. Jesus xxv. 838 A potter, by the motion of his wheel, and the activity of his hand, gives the clay what form and shape he pleases. a1720Sewel Hist. Quakers (1795) I. iv. 343 Thou and all mankind are as clay in the hand of the potter. 1867Smiles Huguenots Eng. ii. (1880) 22 This wandering workman was no other than Bernard Palissy..more generally known as the great Potter.
†b. Applied to a maker of metal pots or vessels. Obs. rare.
1443Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 82 Willelmo Browne potter pro factura ij patenarum, j brasyn morter, ij parvarum ollarum, cum xvij libr. eris, xij s. vj d. 1549Compl. Scot. i. 19 Ane pottar vil mak of ane masse of mettal diuerse pottis of defferent fassons.
2. A vendor or hawker of earthenware. north. dial. (Cf. south Sc. mugger.) Also, in northern England, a vagrant, a kind of tramp or gypsy.
c1500Robin Hood & Potter xxxiv. in Child Ballads (1888) III. 111 ‘Pottys, gret chepe!’ creyed Robyn,..all that saw hem sell, Seyde he had be no potter long. 1795Wordsw. Guilt & Sorrow xlvi, Rough potters seemed they, trading soberly With panniered asses driven from door to door. 1798― Peter Bell i. iii, A Potter, Sir, he was by trade. 1867Q. Rev. CXXII. 378 The ‘potters’, a kind of indigenous gipsies, often curiously bearing the names of the great Northern families. 1881Dixon Craven Dales vi. 71 [He] used to boast that ‘he could..wallop a potter, or preach a sermon with any man in the country!’ 1885Specimens Westmoreland Dial. 38 A com at a potter tent int' green lonnin. 1899West Cumberland Times 28 Jan. 3/2 He had known the piece of waste... He had seen potters camping on it... You mean tramps or gipsies?—Yes, something of that kind. 1972Times Lit. Suppl. 3 Mar. 245/3 The travellers and vagrants—gypsies, ‘potters’, pedlars, beggars, Irish labourers looking for work—who haunted..the roads of Lakeland.
3. attrib. and Comb. (also with potter's), as potter craft; potter's asthma, a form of fibroid phthisis to which persons exposed to the dust of the pottery industry are subject; also called potter's bronchitis, consumption, disease, phthisis (Syd. Soc. Lex. 1895); potter's clay, potter's earth, any plastic clay free from iron, and thus suitable for the making of earthenware, stoneware, or porcelain; potter's field, a name given (after Matt. xxvii. 7) to a piece of ground used as a burial place for the poor and for strangers; also fig.; potter's lathe, a frame with a horizontal disk revolvable at various speeds, on which the prepared clay is moulded into shape; potter's lead, potter's ore, lead ore used for glazing pottery, galena: cf. pottern; potter's (or potters') rot, silicosis or other lung disease caused by the continued inhalation of dust in a pottery; potter wasp, a wasp which builds a cell or cells of clay in a cylindrical cavity, as the American species Odynerus flavipes and Eumenes fraterna; potter's wheel, the horizontal revolving disk of a potter's lathe.
1616Surfl. & Markh. Country Farme 593 Sandie, stonie, grauelly, and flintie ground, as also such as consisteth of a *Potters clay in the bottome. 1796Kirwan Elem. Min. (ed. 2) I. 180 Potters Clay. Colour, generally greyish white, and then called pipe clay. 1872Ellacombe Ch. Bells Devon Pref. 4 Plaster of Paris casts, made from ‘squeezes’ taken..with potter's clay.
1864H. Bruce in Daily Tel. 15 June, The people being liable, amongst other diseases, to one peculiar to them, called ‘*potter's consumption’.
c1450Life St. Cuthbert (Surtees) 444 For I can noȝt of *potter craft.
c1440Promp. Parv. 411/1 *Pottarys erthe, argilla. 1670Pettus Fodinæ Reg. 1 Where Clays are digged (as Fullers earth, Potters earth, etc.) we call them Pits. 1799G. Smith Laboratory I. 195 Make any utensil of fine potters earth.
[1526Tindale Matt. xxvii. 7 They toke counsell, and bought with them a potters felde to bury strangers in.] 1777J. Adams in Fam. Lett. (1876) 259, I took a walk into the *Potter's Field, a burying ground between the new stone prison and the hospital. 1906‘Mark Twain’ in Westm. Gaz. 26 Nov. 4/2 When I wrote a letter..you did not put it in the respectable part of the magazine, but interred it in that ‘potter's field’, the Editor's Drawer.
1727–41Chambers Cycl. s.v. Pottery, The *potter's lathe is also a kind of wheel, but simpler and slighter.
1670Pettus Fodinæ Reg. v. (1706) 21 From the Metals are produced Letharges,..White-Lead, Read-Lead, *Potters-Lead and many other varieties. Ibid. vi. 25 Potters Lead is made by art from common Lead Oar. 1822Cleaveland Min. (ed. 2) 634 Galena is sometimes..called potters' Lead ore.
a1728Woodward Catal. (1729) 213 *Potters-ore with a vein of white spar passing through the middle of it.
1908T. Oliver Dis. of Occupation x. 307 As far back as the days of Ramazzini (1670), the lung troubles of the potters had been recognised and described. With the terms ‘*potters' rot’ and ‘potters' asthma’ the public are quite familiar. 1966Wright & Symmers Systemic Path. I. x. 405/1 Soon after calcined flint was introduced in the manufacture of porcelain, at about the middle of the 18th century, ‘potter's rot’ made its appearance among the workmen. 1972G. Wigg George Wigg viii. 161 Silicosis, known in Stoke as ‘potter's rot’, was a scourge in Dudley.
1880New Virginians I. 99 The little *potter-wasp makes a nest of clay, shaped like an ancient pot, which it fills with caterpillars.
1727–41Chambers Cycl. s.v. Pottery, The *potter's wheel consists principally in its nut, which is a beam or axis, whose foot or pivot plays perpendicularly on a free-stone sole or bottom. 1832G. R. Porter Porcelain & Gl. i. 5 The earliest authentic records allude to the potter's wheel as to an implement of then high antiquity.
▪ II. ˈpotter, n.2
[f. pot v.1 (in various unconnected senses) + -er1.]
†1. One addicted to potting; a tippler.
1632,1663[see piper2 2].
2. One who pots or preserves meat, etc.
1857J. Davy Angler in Lake District i. 10, I cannot do better than let you have the receipt of an experienced potter of charr.
3. One who pots at game (pot v.1 5); a pot-hunter.
1884Pall Mall Budget 22 Aug. 27/2 Many a wealthy ‘potter’ who has..blazed away..at the deer.
4. Applied to some North American turtles:
a. A fresh-water clemmyoid turtle, Deirochelys serrata;
b. The red-bellied terrapin, Pseudemys rugosa.
1890in Cent. Dict. 1890in Webster.
▪ III. potter, n.3
[f. potter v.]
Trifling action or (in Scott) talk. Also, a gentle stroll or saunter. Also fig.
1818Scott Hrt. Midl. xxxvii, That precision and easy brevity which is only acquired by habitually conversing in the higher ranks of society, and which is the diametrical opposite of that protracted style of disquisition ‘Which squires call potter, and which men call prose’. 1897Chicago Advance 10 June 769/1 These are little things any way, a mere potter about externals. 1901‘L. Malet’ Hist. R. Calmady iii. v. 210 But Camp, who missing Richard, had followed his mistress out of the house for a leisurely morning potter, turned back sulkily. 1949E. Bowen Heat of Day xiv. 248 A potter through the boundary woods. 1955M. Allingham Beckoning Lady v. 84 The prospect of a glorious potter about was too much for Amanda. 1966O. Norton School of Liars vi. 91 He'll have to go pretty steadily. No worries. No real work. A good potter for about a month. 1972Q. Bell Virginia Woolf I. ii. 33 Leslie's favourite exercise was walking; he would sometimes go for what he called ‘a potter’, covering thirty miles or so.
▪ IV. potter, v.|ˈpɒtə(r)|
Also (6 poder), 9 dial. and U.S. putter.
[app. freq. (with shortened vowel) of pote v. to thrust, push, poke.]
1. a. intr. To poke again and again; to make a succession of slight thrusts. Now only dial.
1530Tindale Expos. Matt. v.–vii. v. 3. 16 b, Thou doest but with poderinge [so ed. c 1550; Wks. 1573 pottering] in the fyre, make the flame greater. 1646Topicks in Laws of Eng. Ded., Hee will be brodding at, and pottering upon the ground, every way with his Rapier or Dagger. 1681Cotton Wond. Peak (ed. 4) 64 Stooping, with our sticks t'essay, If pottering this and that way, we could find How deep it went. 1714M. Fothergill in Hearne's Collect. (O.H.S.) IV. 303 Four small Coyns were..casually found by a Shepherd, pottering upon the ground wth his Crooke. a1825Forby Voc. E. Anglia, Potter, to poke, pry, rummage. It seems..to imply repetition or continuance of poking. 1865J. Sleigh Derbysh. Gloss. (E.D.D.), Poking or pottering in the earth.
b. trans. To poke; to move or stir (anything) by thrusting. Now dial.
1747Hooson Miner's Dict. K iv b, With a Stick long enough, one might potter them down out of the Roof. 1828Craven Gloss. (ed. 2), Potter, to poke, to push as with the end of a stick. 1877N.W. Linc. Gloss. s.v., Noo then, Anne, potter that fire, or it'll be deäd oot in a minnit.
2. trans. To trouble, plague, perplex, worry, bother. dial. Cf. pother v. 1.
c1746J. Collier (Tim Bobbin) View Lanc. Dial. Wks. (1862) 40 Neaw wou'd naw sitch o Moonshine traunce Potter any body's Plucks? 1828Craven Gloss. (ed. 2), Potter, to confuse. ‘Don't potter me’. 1855Mrs. Gaskell North & S. xix, By th' twenty-first, I reckon, he'll be pottered in his brains how to get them done in time. Ibid. xlv.
3. intr. To meddle, interfere, esp. where one has no business; to tamper (with). Now dial.
1655W. Gurnall Chr. in Arm. verse 11. iii. (1669) 26/2 A Lock whose Wards have been troubled, which makes it harder to turn the Key, than if never potter'd with. 1866Mrs. Gaskell Wives & Dau. I. 3 My lord's taking a fancy to go ‘pottering’..which meant that..the earl asked his own questions of his own tenants, and used his own eyes and ears in the management of the smaller details of his property.
4. a. To occupy oneself in an ineffectual or trifling way; to work or act in a feeble or desultory manner; to trifle; to dabble (in something).
1740[see pottering ppl. a. 2]. 1828Craven Gloss. (ed. 2), Potter, to do things ineffectually. ‘How thou potters’. 1832Manning in Purcell Life I. 99, I suppose your husband is pottering on in his old way. 1861Hughes Tom Brown at Oxf. xlvi, David pottered on at his bees and his flowers till old Simon returned. 1871J. R. Green Lett. iii. (1901) 294, I remember..raving against the people who pottered over Roman roads. 1887Spectator 16 Apr. 535/1 Any man..who likes to ‘potter’ in zoology.
b. To talk in a trifling or desultory way.
1826Scott Jrnl. 6 Sept., [They] pottered away about Persia and India, and I fell asleep.
c. trans. with advbs. To make out or work out by pottering; to trifle away, to spend, waste, or lose in or by pottering.
1853E. FitzGerald Lett. (1889) I. 225, I have ordered Eastwick's Gulistan: for I believe I shall potter out so much Persian. 1883A. Forbes in Fortn. Rev. 1 Nov. 664 He pottered away..his opportunity to reach Verdun. 1893W. A. Shee My Contemp. vii 188 Uncles and aunts..were content to potter away their lives at Torquay.
5. intr.
a. To move or go about poking or prying into things in an unsystematic way, or doing slight and desultory work.
1840B. Hall Patchwork (1841) II. vii. 122, I pottered about in the environs of Naples. 1859Jephson Brittany xiii. 220 He did not go pottering about, measuring cornices, and sticking a portico from the Parthenon here, and a pediment from somewhere else there. 1860G. H. Lewes Jrnl. 26 Sept. in Geo. Eliot Lett. (1954) III. 349 To-day..I wrote some letters and pottered. 1861Hughes Tom Brown at Oxf. v, Pottering about in the Bodleian, and fancying I should like to be a great scholar. 1880M. E. Braddon Just as I am x, To potter about with your garden scissors and the watering can in the conservatories. 1922Joyce Ulysses 737 He prefers pottering about the house. 1947W. S. Maugham Creatures of Circumstance 94 Then he would turn his business over to his son and retire with his wife to a little house in the country where he could potter about till death claimed him at a ripe old age. 1977Times 7 Dec. 12/3 Randall..pottered about for 26 in 13/4 hours before giving a catch to gully.
b. To go about or walk slowly, idly, or aimlessly; to saunter, dawdle, loiter.
1829Lady Granville Lett. 2 Apr., Balls every night. After that they all potter off to their Campagnes. 1835Fonblanque Eng. under 7 Administr. (1837) III. 213 That lean, hobbling old fellow,..pottering about in an incapacity for any thing but to fall to and enjoy other men's meat. 1857T. Hughes Tom Brown's School Days i. ii. 32 Past the old church and down the footpath, pottered the old man and the child hand-in-hand. 1888Century Mag. Dec. 219/2 The slowest of Sunday trains, pottering up to London. 1903G. B. Shaw Man & Superman iv. 162 Mrs Whitefield, who has been pottering round the Granada shops, and has a net full of little parcels in her hand, comes in through the gate and sees him. 1918Galsworthy Five Tales 272 He..pottered in and out of his dressing-room. 1932E. Waugh Black Mischief vii. 257 The Envoy Extraordinary finished his second cup of coffee, filled and lit his pipe, and avoiding the social life of the lawn, pottered round by the back way to the Chancery. |