Cauldrons

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Vessels that are typically large and metallic, used for boiling or mixing various liquids while providing a historic connection to traditional cooking methods
2. Containers historically utilized for concocting brews or meals over direct heat, largely featured in folklore and witchcraft narratives
3. Large pots usually made of metal, designed to cook or boil various substances over an open flame

Etymology: Before it meant a witch's pot, "cauldron" was simply a hot-water vessel in Latin: "caldaria" was a cooking-pot, built from "caldus," meaning "hot." That root also gave us the Spanish-derived "caldera," the crater left by a collapsed volcano, a vessel of a very different scale. The word reached English in Middle English as "caudroun," borrowed from Old Northern French "caudron." The spelling we use now came later, when scholars and writers added an "l" to make the word look more like its Latin source, even though the sound never had one. The result is a silent-looking letter that tells you the word's journey through Latin. Its sense of a military encirclement, as in being "cauldroned" or trapped, is a semantic loan from German "Kessel," which also means a pot and a battle pocket. English later adopted the same idea as "kettling."

Synonyms: boilers, kettles, pots, vessels, containers