potter

«potter» in Mova's school dictionary: a person who makes pots, bowls and other things from… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a potter, potters); verb (potter, potters, pottered, pottering — UK, Ireland, Australia; US «putter»); proper noun (Potter — a name)

meaning for a pupil

1) A potter is a person who makes pots, bowls and other things from clay, often on a spinning wheel, and bakes them in a kiln. tree →

2) (UK) To potter (about or around) is to do small, pleasant, unhurried jobs or move about slowly and happily («potter in the garden»). tree →

3) (a name) Potter is a surname, as in Beatrix Potter, the author of Peter Rabbit, and the fictional Harry Potter. tree →

sense in the lessons

In art lessons, children try being potters with clay and learn that clay is soft but turns hard when fired. In history, potters made the pots archaeologists find today. In everyday British talk, grandparents «potter about» at the weekend. In the Bible, God is sometimes compared to a potter shaping clay.

examples

• The potter shaped a bowl on the spinning wheel. tree →
• Potters fire their pots in a hot kiln. tree →
• Grandad likes to potter about in his shed. tree →
• We spent Sunday pottering around the house. tree →
• Beatrix Potter wrote «The Tale of Peter Rabbit». tree →
• Harry Potter is a boy wizard in a book. tree →
• The potter's wheel spins very fast. tree →
• So the potter gave him beautiful raiment and ornaments, and the prince went to the palace. tree →

note

Countable: potters. Verb is regular: pottered. US English says «putter» for the relaxed sense. Capital P for the names; the word «potter» for clay workers is lower case.

In the corpora

• Some people became potters, builders, priests or leaders, and villages grew into towns.
• When farms made more food than needed, some people could have other jobs, such as potter, builder, priest or leader.
• Wheels appeared about 5,500 years ago; potters used spinning wheels, and soon wheels were put on carts.
• 'Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear My words.'
• Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he was at his work on the wheels.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «potter» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.