Dutch oven

English

Etymology

Dutch (“substitute, inferior, ersatz”) + oven. See Dutch for more information on the now obsolete sense that the term is derived from.

The cigar sense is said to originate in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

Dutch oven (plural Dutch ovens)

1. A large metal cooking pot with a tight-fitting lid.
   • 1780, William Cowper, letter, 5 June:

     I heard the most uncommon and unaccountable noise that can be imagined. It was, in fact, occasioned by the clattering of tin pattypans and a Dutch oven against the sides of the panniers.

2. A portable oven consisting of a metal box, with shelves, placed before an open fire.
3. (rail transport) A protective cover for electrical contacts on a railway coupler, particularly but not exclusively used on the London Underground.
4. (slang) The situation where a person breaks wind under the bedcovers, sometimes pulling them over a bedmate's head as a prank.
   • 1996 Bart Plantenga, "Wiggling Wishbone: Stories of Pata-Sexual Speculation" page 111

     Dutch Oven = Farting in bed & then lifting the blankets.

   • 1996 Jonathan Green "Words Apart: The Language of Prejudice" page 191

     a Dutch oven, most commonly a large pot heated by surrounding it with fuel, and placing hot coals on the lid, can also be a mouth. Not only that - it can also be the smell of a bed in which someone has just farted.

   • 2009 Theodore in "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel", debuted December 23

     Oh, man! Dutch oven! Not the Dutch oven! Anything but the Dutch oven! Must find fresh air before it's too late! It's too late! It burns. Mama, it burns!

   • 2016 Lynn Loud "Space Invader" The Loud House episode 6, debuted May 20

     Hey Lincoln, what's more fun than a Canadian microwave? A Dutch oven!

     Dutch oven! Goodnight Lincoln.

5. A room or vehicle full of marijuana smoke.
6. (slang) The very end of a Dutch Masters cigar that has been rerolled with marijuana.
7. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see Dutch,‎ oven.

Translations

cooking pot

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Dutch: braadpan (nl) m
• Finnish: valurautapata (fi)
• French: cocotte (fr) f
• German: Dutch Oven m, Kokotte (de) f
• Jamaican Creole: Dutch pot
• Korean: 더치 오븐 (deochi obeun)
• Spanish: olla de hierro f
• Swedish: gjutjärnsgryta (sv) c, stekgryta c

Verb

Dutch oven (third-person singular simple present Dutch ovens, present participle Dutch ovening, simple past and past participle Dutch ovened)

1. (slang) To break wind beneath one's bedcovers or some other enclosed space.
   • 2012 May 7, “Dinosaur Flatulence Dutch-Ovened the Jurassic Period”, in Slate‎^[1]:

     (title)

   • 2022 August 17, Brittany Sims, “The View’s Whoopi Goldberg was 'scared' for granddaughter to join reality show- but gave her 'best' advice about new gig”, in The Sun‎^[2]:

     Robin Williams and Billy Crystal standing in an elevator, and Robin Williams was just farting his life away. I guess they were Dutch-ovening each other, just basking in the ambiance of farts.