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. (US) 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.

   • 2018 April 16, Florence Fabricant, “Get a Workout With a New Dutch Oven”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Cast-iron cookware is in the spotlight. Having started with skillets, producers are now introducing Dutch ovens. Despite already owning pots from Staub and Le Creuset, I could not resist the new Dutch oven by Finex Cast Iron Cookware, an American company that makes distinctive octagonal pieces with a dark bronze finish.

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^[2], page 111:

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

   • 1996, Jonathan Green, Words Apart: The Language of Prejudice‎^[3], 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, Jon Vitti, Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel‎^[4], spoken by Theodore:

     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 May 20, Chris Savino, “Space Invader”, in The Loud House‎^[5], season 1, episode episode 15, spoken by Lynn Loud:

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

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^[6]:

     (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^[7]:

     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.

Further reading

• Jonathon Green (2024) “Dutch oven n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang