potch
/pɒt͡ʃ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.68 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A type of rough opal without colour, and therefore not worth selling.
Australian usage; Uncountable
noun
A slap or spank. Alternative spellings include patsh, potsh.
Example Sentences
- "I'll potch at him some way, / Or wrath or craft may get him."
- "Afterwards, the second pasture should be treated in the same manner, and the rest in course, feeding the wettest pasture after the driest, that the soil may be less potched."
- "The said William Aitken, being of new solemnly sworn, &c., depones he is a Burgess of Hawick, and had the property of a house which he now liferents, the fee being disponed to his son-in-law, Bailie Robert Scot, for the use of his son William, his daughter, Bailie Scot's wife, having paid the price of the house; depones sixty years ago Gilbert Elliot was tenant in Nether Southfield, who broke Hawick Common by plowing a part of it, which the Deponent saw at the Common-Riding when the Magistrates and other persons at the Common-Riding potched the ground he had plowed, and was then sown that he might not reap the crop of this."
- "1982, Gemmological Association of Great Britain, The Journal of Gemmology, Volume 18, page 432, Discusses the difference between potch opal and common opal. The terms are often used synonymously, but this writer shows that potch is found only in association with precious opal and differs from common opal in its structure quite substantially."
- "She set them down with precision, she set them down with the same kind of care that Bernie took when he and his underlings cut opal, or when they polished the rough stones, or when they bonded opal veneer on to potch."
- "2006, Michael O'Donoghue, Gems: Their Sources, Descriptions and Identification, 6th Edition, Elsevier, UK, page 321, Likewise, a thin piece of good opal on potch (opal with no play of colour) may be cut so that the potch acts as a backing."
Etymology
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: פּאַטש