Comments on: Pot Licker

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 03:25:29 +0000

Both spellings are correct. It’s just the remaing liquid after cooking greens in large amounts, even spinach and agrugula have potlikker, usually has ham hocks or some kind of seasoning in it as well. At the restaurant I cook at in TX we spell it pot licker, but I’ve seen potlikker at previous establishments.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 19:11:38 +0000

The older men I knew, during my Ozarks blue-collar upbringing in the 50s, used “potlicker” as a term of derision for dogs that had no spirit, no self-respect and would not hunt. (It was applied to humans who would not work and had no principles.) It was often conjoined with “biscuit-eatin’”, a term referring to a dog so lost to good conduct that it would steal biscuits off the table and eat them when its master’s back was turned. Similarly, “egg-suckin’” was a dog that would raid the henhouse it was sworn to protect from varmints and eat the fresh eggs before the farm wife collected them. To be called all three usually meant a canine had done something really, really bad.

By: Annie

Annie — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 20:35:24 +0000

That was basically the connotation in our family. My grandmother (b. 1895) used it to describe the worst people she knew…it was for her the absolute worst insult to level upon someone. And for her family, it was one who re-used the spit out tobacco in the spittoons. (She was a French-Canadian immigrant to Michigan.)

My dad used the term very frequently when he got mad at drivers on the road, and we kids got such a kick out of it that we began using it commonly.

Since he passed away, we use it as a term of affection and call our kids little pot lickers just to keep the phrase alive.

By: D H

D H — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:50:34 +0000

Growing up in the 50′s & 60′s my dad called me that all the time but only when I was being impetuous; and he always had a big smile on his face when saying it.

By: Ted Deegan

Ted Deegan — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 16:48:46 +0000

when I was young a retired railroad man told me after being kicked out of the kitchen by his wife for using the word what it mend. “Calvin what does potlicker mean?” I asked. and he said, “Now the women folk won’t like me telling you this, so don’t go telling them I told you . See a potlicker is a person who lick bed pots. ” “A bed pot?” “A bed pot is what in the old day we kept under the bed to pee in so you won’t have to go out to the outhouse in the middle of the night .”

Also heard it use for the begger in the depression era. BUT I USE THE TERM AS CALVIN DID, DAMN POTLICKERS.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 08 May 2012 22:56:45 +0000

After reading everyone’s responses, I’m going to assume that like many slang terms, “Potlicker” has been adapted to have several slightly different (but similar) meanings, depending on your location…

When I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, my grandpa used to use it all the time – I have since adopted it as my alltime favorite insult and have regularly used it for 25 years…

As a kid, when I asked my grandpa about it, he said that during the depression, there were people who were so poor and so hungry that they would knock on peoples doors at dinnertime and beg to “lick the pots” just to get a little bit of food to eat, so although slightly different, it ultimately has a meaning very similar to the ones discussed here – Basically a potlicker is a “bum”.

I had never heard it from anyone else, anywhere, until I heard it in Talledega Nights. As soon as that movie came out, all my friends texted me and said they “stole” my word haha.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 03:48:05 +0000

The Southern term is “potlikker” it refers to the liquid left after cooking collard greens.

By: Larry t.

Larry t. — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:24:38 +0000

The term “potlicker” as told to me by my dad was used in Kentucky and my native Indiana as someone who “licked the slop jar”. Slop jar being the jar used during the night to avoid having to go all the way to the outhouse.

By: Olivia B

Olivia B — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 23:55:56 +0000

I once read the term ‘pot licker’ in a poem about a Pakistani wedding, of all things. In this case, a ‘pot licker’ was said to be a woman who ‘brought on the rain’. I have no idea if this was symbolic… perhaps meaning somebody who caused misery? Or maybe it literally meant somebody who made it rain. I don’t know.

By: Joe Bob

Joe Bob — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 08:44:35 +0000

Potlicker is most certainly a subservient person, perhaps worse than the yes man. A scavenging idealess man, giving not ideas or action. That is the history of the term. Now, it can almost hold even with the terms “bitch” or “nigger” in their duality of insult and affection. Potlicker may gain ground in the coming years as a hipster badge of adoration and loyalty. We shall see.

By: jimmy

jimmy — Sun, 15 May 2011 00:37:22 +0000

pot licker –where i was raised in the mountains of tennessee the liquid in a pot of mustard / turnip greens was called pot licker , really good stuff

By: HytonedSOB

HytonedSOB — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 15:20:29 +0000

Have you ever heard the expression ` He doesn`t have a pot to piss in`? That is the pot they are talking about1