A pot with a lid, spout, and handle, in which tea is made or brought to table.
[1616. Cocks, Diary (Hakl. Soc.), I. 215. I sent … a silver chaw pot … to Capt. China wife.
1662. J. Davies, trans. Mandelslo’s Trav., II. (1669), 156. There have been Tsia-pots, which had cost between six and seven thousand pound sterling.]
1705. Lond. Gaz., No. 4063/4. A Tea Kettle, a gilt Tea-Pot.
1784. Cowper, Task, IV. 776. There the pitcher stands A fragment, and the spoutless tea-pot there.
1867. Trollope, Chron. Barset, II. lxix. 261. She sat behind her old teapot, with her hands clasped.
1874. [see TEA-PARTY 2].
b. Phr. Tea-pot tempest, tempest in a tea-pot (U.S.): = storm in a tea-cup (see TEA-CUP 4).
1854. Andrews, Lat. Dict., s.v. Simpulum, Excitare fluctus in simpulo,… to raise a tempest in a teapot. Cic. Leg 3. 16, 36.
1891. Cent. Dict., s.v. Tempest, A tempest in a tea-pot, a great disturbance over a small matter.
1896. Peterson Mag., Jan., 104/1. What a ridiculous tea-pot tempest!
Hence Tea-pot v. nonce-wd., to present with a tea-pot; Teapotful, as much as a tea-pot contains.
1854. ‘C. Bede,’ Verdant Green, II. v. Gentlemen who get upon their legs to return thanks for having been ‘tea-potted.’
1895. W. Wright, Palmyra & Zenobia, xxii. 255. The teapot-ful of dirty water.
