What does "pottage" mean?

A thick soup or stew, made by boiling vegetables, grains, and sometimes meat or fish, a staple food throughout Europe in the Middle Ages.

What is a synonym for "pottage"?

Common synonyms include: bisque, bouillabaisse, bouillon, broth, chowder, consomme.

Pottage

//ˈpɑtɪd͡ʒ// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A thick soup or stew, made by boiling vegetables, grains, and sometimes meat or fish, a staple food throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. archaic, countable, historical, uncountable
"And they have not in many places, neither pease ne beans ne none other pottages but the broth of the flesh."
2
thick (often creamy) soup wordnet
3
An oatmeal porridge. archaic, countable, uncountable
4
a stew of vegetables and (sometimes) meat wordnet
5
A dish made by stewing plantain, beans, or yam in a tomato- and pepper-based sauce. Nigeria, countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms

bisque bouillabaisse bouillon broth chowder consomme

Example

More examples

"And Jacob boiled pottage: to whom Esau, coming faint out of the field, said: Give me of this red pottage, for I am exceeding faint. For which reason his name was called Edom."

Etymology

From Middle English pottage, from Anglo-Norman and Old French potage, equivalent to pot + -age.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.