potboiler
noun
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Potboiler draws its meaning from what was once the heartbeat of the home, the hearth and its boiling pot. In the days before modern conveniences, it was essential to maintain a fire within a home's hearth for warmth and domestic activities. In order "to make the pot boil" or "to keep the pot boiling" for cooking, one needed fuel, and to acquire fuel one typically needed an income. When artistic and literary works, especially inferior ones, became the means of keeping the pot boiling in some homes during the 19th century, it didn't take long for the literati to criticize such works as insignificant potboilers.
Examples of potboiler in a Sentence
Justin Chang, New Yorker, 3 Oct. 2025
In George Seaton’s star-studded adaptation of Arthur Hailey’s potboiler, the big disaster comes late in the story.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 19 Sep. 2025
This ‘90s-style potboiler finds affluent attorney Mea Harper (Kelly Rowland) defending charismatic maybe-murderer Zyair Malloy (Moonlight’s Trevante Rhodes).
—Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 14 Sep. 2025
Neil Jordan helmed this stylish remake of Jean-Pierre Melville’s potboiler Bob le Flambeur, which gives Nolte a role he was born to play.
—Declan Gallagher, EW.com, 13 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for potboiler
Cite this Entry
“Potboiler.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/potboiler. Accessed 30 Oct. 2025.
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