cocotte

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a small covered casserole or Dutch oven, especially one used to cook and serve an individual portion

   The eggs were baked and served in a small ceramic cocotte.

2. 2
   noun

   dated: a courtesan or woman in the demimonde, especially in nineteenth-century France

   The novel portrays the fashionable cocotte as both celebrated and socially excluded.

Borrowed from French cocotte. French used the familiar diminutive for several things, including a pet name, a fashionable courtesan, and a small cooking vessel. English adopted both the historical social sense and the cookware sense.

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