marmite

From French marmite.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɑːˌmaɪt/

• Audio (Berkshire, UK)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmɑɹˌmaɪt/

marmite (plural marmites)

1. A rounded earthenware cooking pot.

• metiram

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.

• IPA^(key): /maʁ.mit/

• Audio

  (file)

marmite f (plural marmites)

1. pot, cooking pot, marmite [1388]
2. (metonymically) meal prepared in a cooking pot
3. (military, slang) (heavy) shell [1637]
4. (dated, slang) prostitute [1841]

• faire bouillir la marmite

• → Catalan: marmita
• → English: marmite
• → Portuguese: marmita
• → Spanish: marmita

• “marmite”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.