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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

pothole.

A shallow pit or other edged depression in a road's surface, especially when caused by erosion, weather or traffic.

7 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun
  1. A shallow pit or other edged depression in a road's surface, especially when caused by erosion, weather or traffic.

  2. A pit formed in the bed of a turbulent stream.

  3. A vertical cave system, often found in limestone.

  4. A pit resulting from unauthorized excavation by treasure-hunters or vandals.

  5. A shallow hole dug for the purpose of prospecting for opal or gold.

    Australia
  6. A hyperlink with text displayed on a page that is different from the title of the page to which the text links; a piped link.

    slang
Where this word comes from

From dialectal pot (“pit, hollow, cavity”) + hole. The "cave" senses, attested since at least 1809 (as pot-hole), may be from Middle English pot, potte (“a deep hole for a mine, or from peat-digging”), of uncertain origin; perhaps related to English pit, pote, or pot. Compare Scots pott, patt (“a pit dug in the ground; coalpit”).

noun
  1. A hole or recess on the top of a stove into which a pot may be placed.

Where this word comes from

From pot + hole. Attested since at least 1811 (also as pot-hole), possibly continuing Middle English *pothol (attested in the plural, potholys).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.