Home UK English hothouse

Meaning of hothouse in English:

hothouse

Pronunciation /ˈhɒthaʊs/

See synonyms for hothouse

Translate hothouse into Spanish

noun

  • 1A heated greenhouse in which plants that need protection from cold weather are grown.

    as modifier ‘hothouse plants’
    • ‘I dream of rain, falling on everything, the dripping, peeling runnels of all gardens, from the grey sky through glass and hothouse, in the sowed order of this elder's place.’
    • ‘These so-called cluster tomatoes are cultured in hothouses for sale during seasons when field-grown crops aren't available.’
    • ‘As a response to the historic site and context, to the requirements of modern hothouses and to climate, it is both sophisticated and thoughtful.’
    • ‘Careful, many of the miniatures sold at florists or checkouts around the country are hothouse plants that won't take any cold at all; make sure to ask.’
    • ‘But since they must endure the stress of forced bloom and off-season transplanting, they need special handling to make the transition from hothouse to garden.’
    • ‘Cockatiels certainly do not need hothouse conditions to breed.’
    • ‘Europeans, meanwhile, were captivated by the fruit and had tried to grow it in their hothouses, with varying success.’
    • ‘The central glasshouse had two lean-to hothouses, one dry for cacti, the other humid for tropical plants.’
    • ‘The stand was created to bring nature indoors, and one might draw a parallel between a hothouse plant and a landscape painting - each is an aspect of commodified nature.’
    • ‘There are plans for deep-freeze capsules carrying medicines or human organs for transplants and even heated ones for hothouse plants or food.’
    • ‘Given the financial commitment involved, it's important to get it right - it could mean the difference between a pokey hothouse or a cold, dark space and a bright, year-round sunroom.’
    • ‘It has 288 acres of magnificent plants and glorious trees, plus hothouses, laboratories, and four museums.’
    • ‘When Darwin received some new plants for the hothouse, he wrote to a friend that he and Henrietta ‘go & gloat over them.’’
    • ‘They live in a small hothouse - filled with plants - that is supposed to simulate a rain forest.’
    • ‘We are talking of thousands of square kilometres of hothouses, factories and packing plants.’
    • ‘That will add huge costs for those operators who are involved in building prefabricated buildings, barns, bridges, glasshouses, and hothouses.’
    • ‘Several of the plants have been stolen from Berlin's hothouses - the world's second largest - along with dozens of other species of exotic plants.’
    • ‘Specimens from all over Arkon are cultivated here, and those plants whose preferred climate does not fit that of the lands surrounding the Academy are housed in hothouses.’
    • ‘The White House is both a hothouse and a graveyard for professional loyalty.’
    • ‘But if you've never grown orchids before, you may wonder: Can you grow these hothouse beauties without a greenhouse?’
    greenhouse, glasshouse, conservatory, orangery, vinery, alpine house, winter garden
    View synonyms
    1. 1.1An environment that encourages rapid growth or development, especially in a stifling or intense way.
      as modifier ‘the hothouse atmosphere of the college’
      • ‘Students were not potted plants to be watered in some academic hothouse, nor were they to be subjects of academic experiments.’
      • ‘In this Bohemian hothouse, our quirks and foibles flourished unchecked.’
      • ‘Surely there is a point where in-house becomes hothouse.’
      • ‘The science and technology hothouse is built on land that was once part of RAF Martlesham Heath.’
      • ‘The best-known alumni of this talent hothouse are Formula One drivers Ralf Schumacher, Christian Klien and Timo Glock.’
      • ‘Senior faculty scour the world for young researchers, graduate students, and postdoctoral candidates who might thrive in this cross-disciplinary hothouse.’
      • ‘Groton Labs isn't some academic hothouse where a few eggheads are allowed to toil fruitlessly forever.’
      • ‘When Kierkegaard was twenty-two years old, he made his first foray into this literary hothouse.’
      • ‘This attitude toward violence was no different from that in England, except in that urban hothouse of London.’
      • ‘It's a kind of hothouse testing ground for talent, where you might find writers taking a turn at singing, wrestlers reading poetry, or comedians playing jazz guitar.’
      • ‘Edmonton's own DIY movie hothouse presents the fruits of its labours.’
      • ‘The preparation of international rugby teams is becoming a hothouse breeding mutant plants.’
      • ‘During their respective seasons, the national capitals, county towns, and resorts were hothouses of competition, as the company, dressed to the nines, jockeyed with each other for the last ounce of prestige.’
      • ‘But the flattery of imitation soon gave way to the condescension of tourists, as all Italy itself was already on the way to becoming a hothouse and museum.’
      • ‘The team Eriksson is building was always likely to bloom a few years hence rather than in the hothouse of this Asian summer.’
      • ‘In our culture, work of this kind sometimes seems a form of diminishment, either a taking away of the illusions of the past or a hothouse re-creation of them.’
      • ‘The Second World War was a hothouse for technological advance, the military having to innovate to survive; it produced advances in jet engines, radar, and computing, to cite three examples.’
      • ‘Jimmy was sent to his father's old school, the intellectual hothouse of Winchester, where he was driven by the need to restore the family fortune.’
      • ‘My school was a thrusting hothouse of academic achievement.’
      • ‘But the structure is characteristically tight and Rattigan captures particularly well the hothouse insularity of the Mayfair set who regard Manchester as a foreign city on which the sun never rises.’
      intense, oppressive, stifling
      View synonyms

verb

[with object]

  • Educate or teach (a child) to a high level at an earlier age than is usual.

    ‘a school that had a reputation for hothousing its girls’
    • ‘We offer tangible value to the individuals behind the idea and then, by hothousing the concept, we offer investors a very sound proposition indeed.’
    • ‘The mother of Andy Murray, Britain's teenage tennis sensation, has produced a guide to the pitfalls of being a ‘pushy parent’ when hothousing a sporting prodigy.’
    • ‘His is not a story of hothousing a talent through academies from early boyhood.’
    • ‘I am not saying that my parents hothoused us; far from it.’
    • ‘Her five year old so doesn't want to be hothoused and forced into hateful activity after hateful activity.’
    • ‘She would become quite animated on the subject of early education for preschoolers - ‘absurd’ - or if encountering a real atrocity such as hothousing: ‘bloody absurd’.’
    • ‘‘You can take it all a bit too seriously, get into hothousing and learn the sign for every single word,’ she says.’
    • ‘Maradia is not the product of an expensive private school or aspiring middle class parents who hope to hothouse her into academic brilliance.’
    • ‘The Irishman sitting between Scottie Brown and Kevin Thomson would positively hothouse the development of these two superb prospects, and Keane will have that effect on Celtic's youngsters.’
    • ‘‘My programme is the opposite of hothousing,’ she insists.’
    • ‘The former Scottish national tennis coach has launched an online guide to the pitfalls of hothousing sporting prodigies.’
    • ‘And, even among the 2% of children who are naturally ‘gifted’, there's little evidence hothousing does any good.’
    • ‘They are common throughout China, but many Westerners consider their hothousing of developing child athletes as cruel.’