marmite

Signification (Anglais)

1. pot, cooking pot, marmite
2. meal prepared in a cooking pot
3. (slang) (heavy) shell
4. (slang) prostitute, especially one past the first youth, the "flesh pot" of the souteneur

Concepts

marmite

casserole

chaudron

poterie

pot

en terre cuite

bouilloire

rice cooker

canari

pot de chambre

cocotte

chaudière

chaudrière

poêle

poêle à frire

Genre

♀️ Féminin

Prononcé comme (IPA)

/maʁ.mit/

Étymologie (Anglais)

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.