Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a chamberpot; by ext. any highly malodorous object.

1718		C. Hitchin Conduct of Receivers and Thief-Takers 22: They already threaten me with Stink Pots, Fire brands and Arrows.
1748		Smollett Roderick Random (1979) 52: He cried ‘Murder.’ ‘I’ll teach you to empty your stink-pots on me.’.
1815		D. Roberts Military Adventures of Johnny Newcome I 23: My best reg’mentals all bedevil’d By that d—n’d stink-pot which at me was levell’d.
1901		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Nov. 1/1: It is up to the authorities to suppress the stench around the hospital morgue [...] the insanitary stinkpot is a menace to all within nose radius.
1923		Maoriland Worker 14 Nov. 11/4: It was called vile, disgusting, loathsome, a stinkpot, a cesspool, and heaven alone knows what for.
1931		Exter & Plymouth Gaz. 10 Apr. 6/3: People going to church had to pass over what was nothing less than a stink-pot.
1939		Eve. Teleg. 18 July 6/2: [He] described the lade [i.e. a watercourse that has become an open sewer] as ‘the biggest stink-pot’ we have in the whole countryside.

2. (also stinkbone) a general term of abuse, aimed usu. at people rather than things [esp. refers in N.Z. to a child who wets themselves].

1771		Cooke in Foote Maid of Bath Married A2: To save the Disgrace of your four Heroes [...] you play off the Stink-pot of Love upon your Enemy, in order to make her run away from such stale Offers of Matrimony.
1819		T. Moore Fudger Fudged 42: [notes] What Tom Paine (himself a stink-pot) said unfoundedly of Burke, ‘that he rose like a rocket and fell like the stick’.
1849		Paul Pry 22 Jan. n.p.: An author has described the immediate vicinity of the Haymarket as the ‘stink-pot’ of the metropolis.
1854		T. Woolner in Eliot Letters (1954) II 176: I will not [...] display the filthy contaminations of these hideous satyrs and smirking moralists [...] stink pots of humanity.
1856		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 23 Aug. n.p.: If they can stand such an old stink-pot as he is, they can stand anything.
1866		Dundee Courier 24 May 2/3: Dr Thompson once called the Edinburgh Review ‘the stinkpot of literature’.
1883		Sth Aus. Register (Adelaide) 3 Feb. 7/4: The most deadly vapours are often those unknown to the nose. Till some ‘stinkpots’ are stirred people are content to abide their presence [...] the stirrer gets abuse, but wise men see in him a public benefactor.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 18 Nov. 4/2: The leprous Chinese, the squalid Syrians, the lazy Levantines and the various stinkpots of Humanity imported from every climate under the sun.
1906		E. Pugh Spoilers 37: Dare not, you miserable stinkpot!
1907		Burra Record (SA) 20 Mar. 3/5: They Say [...] That the stinkpots will have a rest now ’Lijah bas gone.
1916		Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 271: Go away, you stinkpot. And you are a stinkpot.
1927		B. Cormack Racket Act II: These newspapers [...] are makin’ a stink-pot out o’ this city.
1927		Smith’s Wkly 20 Aug. 11/1: Slanguage. [...] Construct sentences including the following phrases: [...] ‘’E wos a regular stinkpot’.
1928		Hecht & MacArthur Front Page Act II: Yeah, you’re leavin’, but we gotta work here, with all them stink pots.
1934		B. Traven Death Ship 311: Turn to it, the hell, you stinkbones.
1939		B. Appel Power-House 250: A dumb stinkpot. That’s all. You’re too yellow to fight.
1948		D. Ballantyne Cunninghams (1986) 217: I don’t care what people call me [...] They can call me miserable old stinkpot, or they can call me a good fellow, but I don’t care.
1951		M. Spillane One Lonely Night 71: When I met up with that stinkpot I was going to split him right down the middle.
1963		B. Modisane Blame me on Hist. 37: Bring those stink pots out.
1986		C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 25: Mr. Cabal’s lawyer didn’t appreciate your description of his client as ‘yellow-bellied vermin culled from the stinkpot of Castro’s jails’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

3. a form of malodorous firework; thence a stink-bomb.

1857		Hants. Chron. 23 May 6/5: The only accident occurred was one man of the hornet severely burnt by a stinkpot.
1881		Bucks Herald 24 Sept. 8/3: Horns were blown, cat-calls introduced, crackers and squibs let off, and a ‘stink-pot’ made of materials of most lamentable and vile smell, was set fire to.
1888		Sheffield Eve. Teleg. 4 June 2/3: The British schoolboy [...] will be startled to learn [...] the innocent egg transformed itself into a kind of dynamite bomb, or rather natural ‘stinkpot,’ and exploded with a loud retort and the exhalation of unspeakable odours.
1914		‘Ian Hay’ Lighter Side of School Life 116: I hope it’s better than that new kind of stinkpot you invented for choir-practice.

4. (Aus.) a small firework.

1900

Marvel XIV:364 Oct. 2: Then a perfect hail of bullets, crackers, and stink-pots rained down on the brave Britishers.

5. an engine that emits foul fumes; thus a vehicle with such an engine; also attrib.

1905		Sporting Times 8 Apr. 1/5: [He] knocked me over with his stinkpot car an’ then sat on me till the slowfooted lot come up!
1906		Wanganui Herald (N.Z.) 19 Oct. 7/1: The Career of the Motor Bus [...] John Bull is represented as holding his nose to prevent the inhalation of the vile smells emitted from [...] the ‘stinkpot’.
1907		Wanganui Herald 31 Oct. n.p.: New terrors are being added to London life [...] the generic term by which Cockneys designate the motor ’buses is ‘stinkpots’.
1966		(con. WWII) L. Cameron Dirty War of Sergeant Slade (1967) 114: If that stink-pot [potbellied stove] in the rear does not blow us all to kingdom come.
1990		J. Wambaugh Golden Orange (1991) 62: I heard they’re lookin for a boat salesman [...] I think I could probably sell those big stinkpots, right?

6. a large cap, called a mushroom.

1912

E. Pugh City Of The World 257: You narked that bloke in the stinkpot?

7. (US black) the vagina.

1980

E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 151: The fact that a woman’s vaginal scent is often perceived negatively is reinforced by terms like stank and stink pot.