Other forms: cauldrons
A cauldron is a great pot for boiling over a fire. A bubbling cauldron, the witch's cauldron, a cauldron of soup.
It hangs over a fire on a chain or stands on three legs, and it was the ordinary cooking vessel of most European households before ranges. The witch's cauldron is a literary image from Macbeth as much as from folklore. Figuratively, a cauldron is a place of violent activity: a cauldron of noise, a cauldron of unrest. Note that cauldron and chowder come from the same Latin word for hot.
1nouncauldronA great pot for boiling over a fire.
“A huge iron cauldron of soup bubbled over the fire.”
2nounplaceA place of violent activity.
“The stadium was a cauldron of noise when the home team scored.”
cauldron is a large pot.
Old Northern French chauderon comes from Latin caldaria, a cooking pot, from caldus, hot. The l was put back later to look more Latin, and chowder and caldera are the same word.
Latin
caldāria — cooking-pot
fro-nor
chauderon
Middle English
caudroun
English, today
cauldron
From Middle English caudroun, borrowed from fro-nor chauderon, ultimately from Latin caldāria (“cooking-pot”), from Latin caldus (“hot”). Spelling later Latinized by having an l inserted. See chowder, caldera. The military sense is a Kessel; compare kettling.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Myths & Legends, Fairy Tales & Folklore