Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A vase or jar with a round or polygonal body tapering at the neck and having a removable cover.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A vase or jar of rounded form and short neck, with or without a cover.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Ceramics) A vase with a separate cover, the body usually rounded or polygonal in plan with nearly vertical sides, a neck of smaller size, and a rounded shoulder.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from pot, pot, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *pottus.]

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Examples

  • "In French, a potiche is a vase or decorative object of little value and no real practical use that you put on a shelf or the mantle," according to media notes on the film.

    StarTribune.com rss feed 2010

  • "In French, a potiche is a vase or decorative object of little value and no real practical use that you put on a shelf or the mantle," according to media notes on the film.

    WTVM - 1- WTVM Home 2010

  • He's what the French all a "potiche", an attractive but empty vessel.

    Smoking Guns and the Morality of Parliamentary Privilege 2009

  • Potiche In French, a "potiche" is a vase or useless decorative object, used colloquially as a term for a purely ornamental trophy wife.

    NYT > Home Page 2010

  • "potiche", actually, refers to a beautiful but kinda "decorative" woman. depends on the context, but you could translate it by something like "arm candy", though in france we often call "potiches" girls on TV game shows whose job is to look hot and pretend she helps (like the hostess in french wheel of fortune).

    Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood to Open the Cannes Film Festival, Other Pictures Rumored For the Fest | /Film 2010

  • The film's central figure is Suzanne Pujol (Catherine Deneuve), so-called trophy wife (or potiche, in French) of the owner of an umbrella factory, Robert Pujol (Fabrice Luchini).

    Marshall Fine: HuffPost Review: Potiche Marshall Fine 2011

  • The film's central figure is Suzanne Pujol (Catherine Deneuve), so-called trophy wife (or potiche, in French) of the owner of an umbrella factory, Robert Pujol (Fabrice Luchini).

    Marshall Fine: HuffPost Review: Potiche Marshall Fine 2011

  • The film's central figure is Suzanne Pujol (Catherine Deneuve), so-called trophy wife (or potiche, in French) of the owner of an umbrella factory, Robert Pujol (Fabrice Luchini).

    Marshall Fine: HuffPost Review: Potiche Marshall Fine 2011

  • Catherine Deneuve gives an unmistakably regal performance as Suzanne Bujol, a potiche, or trophy wife, to Robert (Fabrice Luchini) the wealthy, reactionary owner of an umbrella factory in 1977; he patronises his wife and is alienated from his grown-up children (played by Jérémie Renier and Judith Godrèche.)

    Potiche: A French farce with feeling 2010

  • For I have lived long enough to learn that the monstrous and outlandish figure, the _magot chinois_ whom I believed to be but a memorial of our forefathers 'mental aberration, that grotesque _potiche_, works!

    Notes on Life and Letters Joseph Conrad 1890

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