pity pot
- noun
- UK
:
estado de autocompasión
- She is always in a pity pot after a breakup.
Examples
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Whenever bad things happen to him, he sits on his pity pot and complains all day.
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She refused to join me on the pity pot after my job loss, encouraging me to move on instead.
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Don't stay on your pity pot too long—it's better to try doing something positive.
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Don't sit in your pity pot all day!
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Some people choose to sit on the pity pot instead of taking action to improve their lives.
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Whenever she feels overwhelmed, she tends to stay on the pity pot and dwell on her problems.
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It's easy to fall into the pity pot and feel sorry for oneself, but it's better to seek support.
Synonyms
36
5.2
A feeling of being sorry for yourself and thinking only about your problems
Eating comfort food because you feel sorry for yourself
Antonyms
How Self-Pitying
36
5.2
- UK
Surface Forms
Morphology
pity + pot
The phrase combines 'pity' (feeling of sorrow/self-pity) with 'pot' (a container), so the meaning is a container/metaphor for being stuck in self-pity; this makes the sense inferable from the parts. However, the collocation is somewhat figurative and not a fully regular composition, so a B1 learner might only partially predict the exact pragmatic sense without prior exposure.
Etymology
The expression pity pot may come from the picture of a person sitting on a small pot and feeling pity, as if they stay there to feel sorry for themselves. So it now means 'a state of self-pity' when someone stays sad and complains instead of trying to move on.