potboiler
noun
Did you know?
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
René Ostberg, Encyclopedia Britannica, 7 May 2026
Even if the questions about the cases had a potboiler premise — brilliant minds filled with the nation’s most vital secrets, vanishing one by one — the available answers looked much less compelling.
—CNN Money, 30 Apr. 2026
Damon and Affleck lead a starry action vehicle – including Golden Globe winner Teyana Taylor – that, even with some plot issues and an overbearing intensity, is way better than most straight-to-Netflix potboilers.
—Brian Truitt, USA Today, 15 Jan. 2026
Adapted from the titular national treasure’s The Seven Dials Mystery by Broadchurch’s Chris Chibnall, this is a reassuringly old-school, three-part potboiler packed with witty quips and startling twists.
—Radhika Seth, Vogue, 3 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for potboiler
Cite this Entry
“Potboiler.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/potboiler. Accessed 19 May. 2026.
Copy Citation
