The Collaborative International Dictionary
Potter \Pot"ter\, n. [Cf. F. potier.]
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One whose occupation is to make earthen vessels.
--Ps. ii. 9.The potter heard, and stopped his wheel.
--Longfellow. One who hawks crockery or earthenware. [Prov. Eng.]
--De Quincey.One who pots meats or other eatables.
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(Zo["o]l.) The red-bellied terrapin. See Terrapin.
Potter's asthma (Med.), emphysema of the lungs; -- so called because very prevalent among potters.
--Parkers.Potter's clay. See under Clay.
Potter's field, a public burial place, especially in a city, for paupers, unknown persons, and criminals; -- so named from the field south of Jerusalem, mentioned in
--Matt. xxvii. 7.Potter's ore. See Alquifou.
Potter's wheel, a horizontal revolving disk on which the clay is molded into form with the hands or tools. ``My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel.''
--Shak.Potter wasp (Zo["o]l.), a small solitary wasp ( Eumenes fraternal) which constructs a globular nest of mud and sand in which it deposits insect larv[ae], such as cankerworms, as food for its young.
Wiktionary
n. A turntable type of machine used by a potter to form round pieces of pottery from wet clay.
WordNet
n. a horizontal rotating wheel holding the clay being shaped by a potter; "the potter's wheel was invented in Asia Minor around 6500 BC"
Wikipedia
In pottery, a potter's wheel is a machine used in the shaping of round ceramic ware. The wheel may also be used during the process of trimming the excess body from dried ware and for applying incised decoration or rings of colour. Use of the potter's wheel became widespread throughout the Old World but was unknown in the Pre-Columbian New World, where pottery was handmade by methods that included coiling and beating.
A potter's wheel may occasionally be referred to as a "potter's lathe". However, that term is better used for another kind of machine that is used for a different shaping process, turning, similar to that used for shaping of metal and wooden articles.
The techniques of jiggering and jollying can be seen as extensions of the potter's wheel: in jiggering, a shaped tool is slowly brought down onto the plastic clay body that has been placed on top of the rotating plaster mould. The jigger tool shapes one face, the mould the other. The term is specific to the shaping of flat ware, such as plates, whilst a similar technique, jollying, refers to the production of hollow ware, such as cups.
Usage examples of "potter's wheel".
Andreev led the way to a corner that held a potter's wheel under a fluorescent light.
The idea of the creation of man as the act of a divine potter is also found in the Egyptian myth, where the god Khnum is depicted as forming the first man and woman on a potter's wheel.
Through one open door he saw several women working looms, arid another showed a silversmith putting up her small hammers and gouges, a third a man at a potter's wheel, his hands in the clay and the brick kilns hot behind him.
For Walgreen, it was a relief to leave that house because Mildred was still there, in every part of it, from her potter's wheel to the mirror she had cracked.
Its most ancient form was probably the potter's wheel, from which it advanced, by successive improvements, to its present highly improved form.
There were power tools in the shop and Miriam's potter's wheel and a big door along the creek side that stood open all summer long.
There they found the first colored pottery baked in a kiln, and evidence of the first use of a potter's wheel.