potpourri

Pot pourri is two French words combined: pot (from Latin pottus, 'pot') and pourri (past participle of pourrir, 'to rot'). Separately, each word is ordinary. Together, they name something that should be disgusting but is somehow refined. The Spaniards had olla podrida ('rotten pot'), a stew of mixed meats that fed armies for centuries. The French adapted the concept for perfume.

In 17th-century France, the practice was practical: dried flowers, roots, and aromatic wood chips were layered in a covered pot with salt, sealed, and left to decompose slowly. The fermentation broke down the plant matter and concentrated the scent. It was alchemy through rot. By the 1700s, wealthy homes had ornamental potpourri jars that were both container and decoration.

English borrowed the French term by the mid-1700s. But something shifted in translation. While the French understood pot pourri as a method (sealed decomposition producing fragrance), English speakers focused on the visible result: a jar of dried flowers that smelled good. The word became synonymous with decorative fragrance itself, not the hidden rotting process underneath.

By extension, potpourri meant any miscellaneous mixture—especially in music, where a potpourri was a medley of familiar tunes stitched together. The metaphorical leap was natural: just as flowers decay into fragrance, compositions dissolve into melodies, and themes fragment into arrangements. What was once a cooking method and a perfume principle became the English word for 'hodgepodge.'