[f. STINK sb. + POT sb., after Du. stinkpot.]
† 1. = STINKER 2. Obs.
1665. [see STINKER 2].
2. A hand-missile charged with combustibles emitting a suffocating smoke, used in boarding a ship for effecting a diversion while the assailants gain the deck.
1669. Sturmy, Mariner’s Mag., I. ii. 20. Ply your Hand-Granadoes and Stink-Pots.
1798. Z. Macaulay, in Visctess. Knutsford, Life & Lett. (1900), 185. She was prepared with stink-pots for boarding.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., Stink-pot. A vessel used by the Chinese and Malay pirates to throw on board a vessel to suffocate the crew.
1906. Westm. Gaz., 24 March, 10/2. A piratical fleet closed round her, threw a stinkpot into the engine-room, and overpowered the crew.
Comb. 1704. Swift, Batt. Bks., Misc. (1911), 242. Paracelsus brought a Squadron of Stink-Pot-Flingers from the snowy Mountains of Rhœtia.
transf. 1748. Smollett, Rod. Rand., xi. I’ll teach you to empty your stink-pots on me.
1913. J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough, VI. Scapegoat, iii. 133. The girls discharge their stink-pots in the faces of their adversaries.
fig. 1738. Warburton, Div. Legat., I. Ded. p. xxii. Your Scurrilities, those Stink-pots of your offensive War.
1778. Warner, in Jesse, Selwyn & Contemp. (1844), III. 317. Venice is a stink-pot, charged with the very virus of hell!
1807. J. King (title), The Beauties of the Edinburgh Review, alias, the Stink-pot of Literature.
3. A sailor’s name for a petrel. Cf. STINKER 5. Also, in S. Africa, applied to the Sooty Albatross, Phœbetria fuliginosa, and the Cape hen, Majaqueus æquinoctialis (Pettman, Africanderisms).
1865. Hardwicke’s Sci.-Gossip, 1 Oct., 239/1. The Stink-pot of sailors is the Black Petrel (Procellaria æguinoctialis, L.).
4. A name given to the musk turtle, Cinosternum odoratum or Aromochelys odorata.
1844. J. E. Gray, Catal. Tortoises, etc. Brit. Mus., 34. The Stink-Pot. Kinosternon odoratum.
1903. Nature, 1 Oct., 531/2. Fourteen Stink-pot Terrapins.
