hot-house

Noun

hothouse (plural hothouses)

1. A heated greenhouse.

   Antonyms:

   coldhouse

2. (figuratively) An environment in which growth or development is encouraged naturally or artificially; a hotbed.
   • This had given him the strength to leave cadet school at seventeen and volunteer for active service, reach the rank of second lieutenant no later than his hothouse-bred contemporaries, begin his military studies in the General Staff Academy itself, and, still only twenty-five, graduate not only...1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 163
3. An environment full of conflict or plots.
   • As with much of Carsley's reign, England entered this Athens hothouse with sub-plots in the background, this time the nine withdrawals from the squad which was met with a critical public response from the normally strictly-on-message captain Harry Kane.2024 November 14, Phil McNulty, “'A night of redemption for Carsley offers real hope for Tuchel'”, in BBC Sport
4. (obsolete) A bagnio, or bathing house; a brothel.
   • Let a man ſweat once a weeke in a Hothouſe, and be well rubd and froted with a good plumpe juicie wench, and ſweet linnen, he ſhall ne’re ha’ the Poxe.1599 (first performance), B. I. [i.e., Ben Jonson], The Comicall Satyre of Euery Man out of His Humor. […], London: […] [Adam Islip] for William Holme, […], published 1600, →OCLC, Act IV, scene iii...
5. A heated room for drying greenware.
6. A hot state in global climate.
   • Kruban is a tidally-locked Venusian hothouse, its surface perpetually obscured by clouds of sulfur and carbon dioxides.2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Kruban

   Synonyms:

   greenhouse

   Antonyms:

   icehouse

See all 7 meanings of hothouse