potboil means to produce inferior creative works in order to make money. It carries an Arena rating of 1527, earned across 58 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, potboil ranks #492 of 17,163 for Funniest Words, #2,373 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #2,487 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #4,332 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words.
Why “potboil” is a great word
POTBOIL — [Verb] To produce inferior creative works, especially in literature or art, primarily to earn a living. From the noun phrase 'pot boiler' (a work produced merely to keep the pot boiling, i.e., to provide basic sustenance), itself from 'pot' + 'boil'. First attested in verb form in 1867, as evidenced in a letter by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Unlike “hack,” which implies a chronic lack of originality regardless of motive, or “proliferate,” which neutrally denotes rapid, abundant output, to potboil confesses a specific, grubby compromise between ambition and the grocer's bill. It is the three-volume novel dashed off to settle a debt, the formulaic portrait commissioned by a tedious patron, the weekly column filled when the muse is on holiday—the quiet surrender of craft to the kettle’s exigent whistle.
Etymology
From pot + boil, after pot boiler.
verb
- To produce inferior creative works in order to make money.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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