noun
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articles, vessels, etc, made from earthenware and dried and baked in a kiln
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a place where such articles are made
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the craft or business of making such articles
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pottery
Compare meaning
How does pottery compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
Something made out of clay and baked in a kiln is a piece of pottery—and the craft of creating it is also pottery. You might make pottery in the arts and crafts tent at camp. Anything made from clay that's been fired, or baked at a high temperature in a kiln, is pottery. Some pottery is made on a wheel that turns while the potter forms the shape of a bowl or vase. Other pottery is formed with hands or tools that shape the clay. In the 15th century, a pottery was a potter's shed or studio.
Vocabulary lists containing pottery
The Stone Age - Middle School and High School
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The Stone Age - Introductory
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Sports and Hobbies
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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 stones from the drain along with fragments of pottery will be examined further by specialists.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
Some of the pieces carried decorations that looked strikingly similar to pottery found hundreds of miles farther north.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 6, 2026
As these craftspeople traveled south from northern Florida, they may have carried pieces of older pottery made from clay found in their homeland.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 6, 2026
The Tampa Bay pottery suggested that the region's relationship with that culture may have been more complicated.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 6, 2026
Archaeologists term the new lifestyle “Yayoi,” after a district of Tokyo where in 1884 its characteristic pottery was first recognized.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Stoneware potteries, coal mines, and steel mills mostly died off to be replaced by refineries, hazardous waste incinerators, unconventional gas wells, and petrochemical facilities.
From Salon ● Mar. 3, 2023
Sometime after the Emancipation Proclamation, he relocated to Texas, where he worked in potteries formed by other freedmen from Edgefield.
From New York Times ● Sep. 22, 2022
A range of jubilee teacups, mugs, plates and pillboxes is being produced in Stoke-on-Trent, England, where potteries have been making royal commemorative ware for generations.
From Washington Post ● May 31, 2022
The area that is now Aiken County had some valuable assets such as textile mills, a railroad, the Savannah River port town of Hamburg and potteries.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 13, 2021
Archeological, documentary, and literary evidences indicate that yellow sgraffito ware, gravel-tempered earthenware utensils, and gravel-tempered pottery ovens were made in several potteries in and around Barnstaple and Bideford in North Devon.
From North Devon Pottery and Its Export to America in the 17th Century by C. Malcolm Watkins
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.
