tea cozy
- noun
- /ti ˈkoʊzi/
- US
- To keep the tea warm, he placed a colorful tea cozy over the teapot.
Examples
-
She makes it carefully, using real tea, not tea bags, warming the pot, covering the whole thing with a tea cozy.
Fiction book (2000) -
He looked like some kind of Indian when he capered around the garden, an old tea cozy on his head, beating a tin with his fist and yelling:
Academic text (1991) -
Or I will turn it into a tea cozy
-
Have you tried the tea cozy?
-
Have you tried the tea cozy?
Fiction book (1994) -
"The tea cozy," she tells him.
Fiction book (1990) -
When I was 4 years old I watched my mother kill a spider with a tea cozy.
-
"So right you are!" She leaned over and removed the tea cozy.
Fiction book (2001) -
She lifted the tea cozy from the ceramic pot, poured Vic another cup of chamomile, and handed the empty pot to Demetrio.
Fiction book (1995) -
She lifted the tea cozy from the ceramic pot to serve tea to her guests.
Synonyms
A warm soft cover that keeps a teapot or dish hot
How Insulating
- US
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from its parts: 'tea' specifies the target (teapot/tea) and 'cozy' conveys warmth/comfort, so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer a cover used to keep tea warm. This is a straightforward compound following common noun + modifier patterns, so the sense is immediately comprehensible without prior exposure.
Etymology
Tea cozy comes from the simple image of a small, warm cover placed over a teapot; the cozy fits over the tea to keep it warm. That's why it means 'a cover for a teapot that keeps the tea warm'.