Plothole is a clever blend of the words plot and pothole which has been used by film and TV reviewers since the late seventies but still has limited coverage in mainstream dictionaries. Pothole, first attested in 1826, originally referred to a geographical feature in glaciers and gravel beds, and came to be used in reference to holes in roads from 1909. By association with the idea of accidentally falling into such holes when travelling on a road, it later acquired the additional figurative meaning of ‘a minor difficulty’.