marmite
English
Etymology
From French marmite.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈmɑːˌmaɪt/
Audio (Berkshire, UK) (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /ˈmɑɹˌmaɪt/
Noun
marmite (plural marmites)
- A rounded earthenware cooking pot.
Anagrams
- metiram
French
Etymology
In Middle French (attested 1388) used in the sense of an earthen or metal cooking-pot; later (17th century) also of bombs or grenades from their resemblance to iron cooking-pots.Earlier, the noun Old French marmite meant "hypocrite" (attested 1223); the semantic development is explained as the cooking-pot being covered and not revealing its interior (thus being "hypocritical", as compared to e.g. a cooking-pan or a plate).
The etymology of marmite "hypocrite" is explained as a compound of marmotter (“to mutter”) (from an onomatopoeic base mar- "murmur") and mite (“cat”) (an obsolete word for "cat", probably also onomatopoeic, i.e. imitative of meowing, extant only in the compound chattemite), and thus describing a person being evasive by "murmuring" or "meowing" instead of speaking plainly.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /maʁ.mit/
Audio (file)
Noun
marmite f (plural marmites)
- pot, cooking pot, marmite [1388]
- (metonymically) meal prepared in a cooking pot
- (military, slang) (heavy) shell [1637]
- (dated, slang)prostitute[1841]
Derived terms
- faire bouillir la marmite
Descendants
- → Catalan: marmita
- → English: marmite
- → Portuguese: marmita
- → Spanish: marmita
Further reading
- “marmite”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Paronyms
- mammite