pother
Americannoun
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commotion; uproar.
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a heated discussion, debate, or argument; fuss; to-do.
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a choking or suffocating cloud, as of smoke or dust.
verb (used with or without object)
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pothers,
present (3rd person singular)
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pothered,
past participle, past
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pothering
present participle
noun
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a commotion, fuss, or disturbance
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a choking cloud of smoke, dust, etc
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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pothersimple
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potherssimple
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have potheredperfect
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has potheredperfect
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am potheringprogressive
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are potheringprogressive
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is potheringprogressive
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have been potheringperfect progressive
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has been potheringperfect progressive
Past
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potheredsimple
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had potheredperfect
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was potheringprogressive
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were potheringprogressive
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had been potheringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of pother
First recorded in 1585–95; origin uncertain
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The pother at Yale had begun the week before, when a fine fall of late winter snow had coincided with a fettlesome rise of early spring sap.
From Time Magazine Archive
Since Army and Navy make a great pother about secrecy in the design and construction of planes, questions had to be asked in Washington.
From Time Magazine Archive
Thus it was amid no end of Imperial pother last week that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain ended his holiday in Scotland, resumed the helm at No. 10 Downing Street.
From Time Magazine Archive
As usual, there is a pother about the new-rules and an argument as to how they shall be interpreted.
From Time Magazine Archive
There's something else in the wind," muttered Mount, as we hid in Belcher's Lane to avoid a party of dragoons; "all this pother is never made on our account.
From Cardigan by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
Soviet ultimatums about Berlin, and assorted parliamentary pothers in Britain.
From Time Magazine Archive
Unlike their fraternity in the ring of Seville, where they are doomed to die, the animals are only doomed to be pothered; they are "scotched, not killed."
From The Andes and the Amazon Across the Continent of South America by James Orton
“As if he would want to be pothered with an old aunt!” cried Rhoda.
From The Maidens' Lodge None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) by Horace Petherick
That she possessed any sense of humour was in itself one of those human miracles which metaphysicians are always pothering over without arriving anywhere; for her previous environment had been particularly humourless.
From The Ragged Edge by Harold MacGrath
In a few moments I hear cries and yells and shouts, and a pothering and squabbling.
From The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano Tales from the German of Tieck by Ludwig Tieck
While his subtle mind was pothering with schemes of detection, the affair presented itself in another light, and he laughed at his own dulness.
From The Prince of India — Volume 01 by Lewis Wallace
“Ho! inteed!” exclaimed Angus, rising in wrath, and cramming his pipe into his vest pocket; “it is herself that will pe pothering you no more spout your dirty land, Samyool Ruvnshaw.”
From The Red Man's Revenge A Tale of The Red River Flood by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
The remaining 361 days the sun is pothering around all over the shop.
From The Cruise of the Snark by Jack London
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
