1891. Licensed Victualler's Gaz., 9 Feb. Dick pointed out some of the big pots of the day, but there did not seem much union of hearts among them.
1899. Whiteing, John St., 150. Grandfather sold things over the counter. The father's some tremendous pot in the financial way, and got his baronetcy for a Royal visit.
1900. Nisbet, Sheep's Clothing, 131. He is rather a big pot as a preacher I hear.
5. (nautical).—A steward.
6. (medical students').—Sixpence: five-pot piece = 2s. 6d.
1885. Household Words, 20 June, 155. To many drinkers the coin . . . was known as a pot, because it was the price of a pot [q.v., sense 1], or quart of 'half-and-half.'
7. (Stock Exchange).—In pl. = North Staffordshire Railway Ordinary Stock. [The railway serves the Potteries.]
8. (Winchester College).—The pot = the Canal. Pot-cad = a workman at the saw mills; pot-gates = lock-gates; pot-houser = a jump into the canal from the roof of a house called pot-house.—Mansfield (c.1840).
9. (venery).—The female pudendum: see Monosyllable.
1678. Cotton, Scoffer Scofft [Works (1725), 260]. In Love I'm not so simple, But to observe she has a Dimple, And such a one, as who would not Put all his Flesh into the Pot?
10. (old).—A urinal; a chamber. Hence as good a piece as ever strode a pot = as good a girl as ever pissed.
Adj. (back slang).—Top.
Verb. (old colloquial).—1. To kill: specifically (modern) to shoot from cover: also to pot-shot. Hence pot-shot, subs. = (1) a shot so made; (2) a shot made for the sake of a bag (q.v.) without regard to the rules and usages of sport; and (3) a shot at random, as into a flight of birds without definite aim: cf. Snipe. Whence to pot away = to keep up a rain of shot.
1858. Edinburgh Courant, 2 Sep. All . . . were firing pot-shots at him, while he was rushing about with a tulwar determined to sell his life dearly.
1860. Russell, Diary in India, ii. 327. Taking pot-shots at their sentries and pickets.
1860. Chambers' Jl., xiii. 90. A few . . . amuse themselves by potting at us, but they are in too great a state of fear to make good practice.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, xl. My gracious sovereign pays me seven and sixpence a day: for which sum I undertake to be shot at on certain occasions and by proper persons . . . But that doesn't include turning out to be potted at like a woodcock.
1861. Reade, Cloister and Hearth, viii. Martin had been in a hurry to pot her, and lost her by an inch.
1866. G. A. Sala, Trip to Barbary, xv. Tourists . . . are in the habit of bringing Devisme's fowling-pieces with them, and potting the monkeys by way of a chasse-cafe.
1883. Daily Telegraph, 23 Mar., 5, 3. The English father of a family has not yet taken to the evil course of waiting for the tax-collector behind a stone wall and potting him with a blunderbuss.
1884. Sat. Rev., 15 Mar. All the pretty shy beasts . . . are potted by cockneys.
1888. Greener, The Gun, 531. The desire of puntsmen to pot as many birds as possible by one shot.
1888. Boldrewood, Robbery Under Arms, xxiii. He and old Crib were a stunning pair for pot-shooting. Ibid., xvi. Take a cool pot at him with a revolver.
1889. Phillipps-Wolley, Trottings of a Tenderfoot [S. J. and C.]. There is none of the credit due to the quiet pot-shot which a quick snap-shot at a buck on the jump might earn.
