hotbedn.
/ˈhɒtbɛd/, U.S. /ˈhɑtˌbɛd/ 1.
a. A bed of soil enclosed in a glass frame, which is heated (typically by fermenting manure) and used for raising or forcing plants.
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the world > food and drink > farming > gardening > garden > division or part of garden > [noun] > bed or plot > hotbed
hotbed1626
bark-bed1732
heat1796
ridge1798
1626 F. Bacon Sylua Syluarum §401 The Bed we call a Hot-Bed.
1664 J. Evelyn Kalendarium Hortense 64 in Sylva Fine and tender Seeds that require the Hot-bed.
1701 T. D'Urfey Bath i. i. 6 She's sprowted up like Sparragus in a hot Bed.
1719 G. London & H. Wise J. de la Quintinie's Compl. Gard'ner (ed. 7) 217 The bright curled Lettuces..do well upon Hot-Beds.
1775 G. White Jrnl. 2 Apr. (1970) viii. 100 Bees resort to the hot-beds tempted by some honey spread on the leaves..of the cucumbers.
1806 B. McMahon Amer. Gardener's Cal. 343 When tender, or curious annuals, have been omitted to be sown..a slight hot-bed may be made for them.
1879 D. J. Hill Bryant 117 Numerous hotbeds assist the tender plants in spring.
1939 Times 2 Jan. 22/5 Make up a hotbed for starting seeds of carrots, radishes, and any other seedlings.
1999 S. Campbell Walled Kitchen Gardens 21 Hotbeds looked somewhat unsightly with their necessary heaps of manure and coverings.
2003 Org. Gardening Sept. 32/2 I grow cucumbers in a hotbed.
b. figurative. A place that promotes the rapid growth or development of any phenomenon, esp. of something harmful or undesirable.
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the world > existence and causation > creation > [noun] > place of production or creation
shop1517
workhouse?1533
workshop1561
childbed1568
factory1618
laboratory1654
elaboratory1667
hotbed1693
mill1771
1693 in H. Higden Wary Widdow sig. A5v From this hot Bed, with Foplings we're opprest That crowd the Boxes and the Pit infest.
1739 Boston Evening Post 15 Oct. 1/1 I Look upon France as the Hot-bed to our English Youth, where They are immaturely ripen'd.
1769 I. Bickerstaff Hypocrite i. vi. 17 The seeds of wickedness..sprout up every where too fast; but a play-house is the devil's hot-bed.
1771 T. Smollett Humphry Clinker III. 5 Edinburgh is a hot-bed of genius.
1851 C. Kingsley Yeast iii These picturesque villages are generally the perennial hotbeds of fever and ague.
1883 S. C. Hall Retrospect Long Life II. 397 Both Houses of Parliament were hot-beds of corruption.
1927 Amer. Mercury Nov. 360/1 The whole area had become a hotbed of violent crime.
1967 D. L. Thomas Plungers & Peacocks vi. 108 It was a hotbed of rumor and malicious chitchat.
2005 R. Nidel World Music: Basics iii. 205 A culturally rich and diverse society as well as a hotbed of Islamic militantism.
2. Metallurgy. A platform or area in a rolling mill where rolled products are placed to cool after rolling.
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society > occupation and work > equipment > metalworking equipment > [noun] > rolling equipment > receiving area for rolled metal
hotbed1868
run-out table1903
1868 Bessemer Process & Wks. in U.S. 24 The hot bed is seventy feet long, with a straightening plate in the middle, and a short raised table at either end.
1954 Times 13 May 12/6 There have also been installed..two high carbon wire-drawing machines, a billet mill hot bed, and a turbo blower.
1988 Technol. & Culture 29 828 The piece was sheared, and mechanically moved to the hotbed where it cooled.
3. U.S. slang. A bed, usually in a cheap lodging house, which is used by different people in turn (cf. hot desk n.); a lodging house having such beds. Also: a bed in a hotel which rents out rooms for short periods, and is often used for prostitution, meetings between lovers, etc. Also attributive, as hot-bed hotel, hot-bed system, etc.
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society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > dwelling place or abode > accommodation or lodging > public lodging-places > [noun] > common lodging house
common lodging house1748
kip1879
doss-house1888
Rowton house1897
fleabag1907
flop1910
flop-house1923
hotbed1939
society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > a building > furniture and fittings > bed > types of bed > [noun] > bed in lodging house > used continuously
hotbed1939
1939 N.Y. City Guide (Federal Writers' Project) 392 New York City's most overcrowded community, Harlem..where the ‘hot bed’ serves three shifts of sleepers a day.
1945 L. Shelly Hepcats Jive Talk Dict. 26/1 Hot bed, cheap flop house.
1953 F. Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth Space Merchants (1955) vii. 77 Since production went on only during daylight hours, the hot-bed system wasn't in use.
1953 ‘F. Paley’ Rumble on Docks 44 I got a face like an angel, the girls in the hot beds say when they kiss me.
1968 P. Oliver Screening Blues vi. 253 Hot-bed apartments and kitchenettes were the only dwelling units available to Negroes.
1994 R. Bak Turkey Stearnes & Detroit Stars 131 It didn't take much to open up a brothel: a couple of ‘hot beds’..and perhaps some complimentary rotgut.
2000 ‘E. McBain’ Last Dance 272 The new mayor started cracking down on hookers using hot-bed hotels for their swift transactions.
Compounds
General attributive (in senses 1a, 1b), as hotbed frames, hotbed heat, etc.
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1721 R. Bradley Gen. Treat. Husbandry & Gardening I. 109 The Hot-bed Cucumbers were in some places destroy'd, which gave the few that were brought to Market as great a Price as when they first came in.
1785 G. White Jrnl. 8 Mar. (1970) xviii. 256 Sowed radishes under the hot-bed screen.
1810 G. Crabbe Borough iv. 50 First comes the hot-bed Heat, and while it glows, The Plants spring up.
1848 C. Kingsley Saint's Trag. Notes 250 Hot-bed imaginations.
1891 E. Peacock Narcissa Brendon I. 26 The man who paints our carts and hot-bed frames.
1921 Ecology 2 197 It can be protected in winter by a couple of hot-bed sashes.
1944 B. F. Bullock Pract. Farming for South v. 71 The hardening process is merely that of gradually getting the hotbed plants used to the outside environmental conditions.
1988 J. Brodsky Sextet v, in To Urania 55 The last of hotbed neu-roses, hearing the faint buzzing of time's tsetse, I smell increasingly of isolation.
2000 Daily Express (Nexis) 3 June The hotbed method is fun if you like getting mucky.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2008; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
hotbedv.
/ˈhɒtbɛd/, U.S. /ˈhɑtˌbɛd/ transitive. To promote the rapid growth or development of (a person or thing). Now rare.
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1826 Gentleman's Mag. Jan. 47/2 The intellect of James was, however, ably hot-bedded by Buchanan.
1854 N. P. Willis 7 May in Out-doors at Idlewild (1855) lvi. 378 The farmers say that the wheat was hot-bedded and forwarded considerably by the week's covering from the air.
1892 Sat. Rev. 9 Apr. 411/2 Men forced and hot-bedded into honours without any genius for study.
1966 Bull. Atomic Scientists Feb. 24/1 The scientific revolution is upon us today, hotbedded by two world wars.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2008; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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