Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small glazed earthenware jar formerly used by druggists for medicaments.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A small pot or vessel, painted and glazed, used by druggists and apothecaries for holding medicines.
  • noun See galipot.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A glazed earthen pot or vessel, used by druggists and apothecaries for containing medicines, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small glazed earthenware jar once used by apothecaries for holding ointment and medicine

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English galy pott : probably galei, galley; see galley + pott, pot; see pot.]

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Examples

  • [FOOTNOTE 41: gallipots -- A gallipot was a small ceramic vessel used by apothecaries to hold medicines.

    The Kellys and the O'Kellys Anthony Trollope 1848

  • “He lies, and I will pound him into a gallipot!” said

    The Fair Maid of Perth 2008

  • For my part I cannot understand how a gentleman like Sowerby can like to see his property go into the hands of a gallipot wench whose money smells of bad drugs.

    Framley Parsonage 2004

  • I know very little about it; but the place itself is a pretty one, though nothing to frighten anybody, unless he hath lived in a gallipot.

    Lorna Doone Richard Doddridge 2004

  • Mr. Morgan himself enriched this mess with a lump of salt butter scooped from an old gallipot, and a handful of onions shorn, with some pounded pepper.

    The Adventures of Roderick Random 2004

  • He pretended to peer into another gallipot and then took off his spectacles to wipe them.

    The Food of the Gods and how it came to Earth Herbert George 2004

  • It was Colligan; and, as the two gigs met in the narrow road, the dirty gallipot took off his hat, and was very sorry to trouble

    The Kellys and the O'Kellys 2004

  • Mr. Bensington certainly sniffed critically at this disorder, but he made no unnecessary fuss, and even when he found a wasp regaling itself in a gallipot half full of Herakleophorbia IV, he simply remarked mildly that his substance was better sealed from the damp than exposed to the air in that manner.

    The Food of the Gods and how it came to Earth Herbert George 2004

  • Nematoids, and, finding none, they were buried in a small quantity of earth (also carefully examined for the presence of Nematoids or their ova) in a gallipot.

    Life: Its True Genesis R. W. Wright

  • The doctor, a lank, pock-pitted embodiment of mad chirurgy from books and antique herbal delusions inherited from generations of simple healers, mixed noxious stuff in a gallipot and plumed himself upon some ounces of gore drawn from his victim.

    Doom Castle Neil Munro

Comments

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  • A small earthen glazed pot, commonly used by apothecaries for ointments and medicines.

    May 31, 2007

  • contained!

    May 31, 2007

  • Perfect! :-)

    June 1, 2007

  • "A nick name for an apothecary."

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1811

    September 5, 2008

  • "Alas, my sister-in-law had received in exchange for her maternal overture to the sulky and stone-faced thirteen-year-old a harsh rebuff, delivered in the girl's wonted insolent fashion: "Sit for several days betwixt you and your damask-nosed crony Miss Snigsworth? Watch the two of you tossing off your gallipots of grog as if it were some ancient nepenthe? Pardon me if I decline the invitation this week or any other week, Mama, but I would rather have sharp iron nails driven into my skull.""

    Under the Harrow by Mark Dunn, 117

    September 3, 2011

  • the little gallipot of a boat that we were in was gravely overloaded.

    Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 17

    February 10, 2019