potboy

See also: pot-boy and pot boy

English

Alternative forms

• pot boy, pot-boy

Etymology

From pot +‎ boy.

Noun

potboy (plural potboys)

1. A boy employed in a plant nursery to tap clay pots with a stick for their ringing sound – indicating whether the plant required watering. As the compost would dry out the clay pot would resonate at a different pitch.
   • GC&HTJ 1985 volume 198 page 17
2. A boy employed as waiter to serve (pots of) drinks, as in a tavern.
   • 2012, Stephen King, 11/22/63, page 782:

     I put on my kitchen potboy disguise and rode down to B-1 in an elevator that smelled like chicken soup, barbecue sauce, and Jack Daniel's.

3. (British) A boy or man employed in a public house to collect empty pots or glasses.
   • 1837, “Boz” [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Sketches by Boz: Illustrative of Every-day Life, and Every-day People. The Second Series, London: John Macrone, […], →OCLC, chapter SEVEN DIALS, page 149:

     (“Hoo-roa,” ejaculates a pot-boy in a parenthesis, “put the kye-bosh on her, Mary.”)

Related terms

• pot-girl
• potman

See also

• busboy

References

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967