hothouse noun 6verb 1forms 3 noun6 •A heated greenhouse. •A heated room for drying greenware. •(figurative) An environment in which growth or development is encouraged naturally or artificially; a hotbed.A seed had been planted in Gillies's mind—and as he took up his next assignment, it would be nurtured in the brutal hothouse of frontline surgery. — 2022 •An environment full of conflict or plots. •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 •(no longer used) 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 verb1 •To provide (a child) with an enriched environment with the aim of stimulating academic development.she had such an exceptional grasp of maths in her first two years at the school theyʼd been hothousing her to sit her GCSE Maths two years early — 2019 formshothoused · hothousing · hothouses
