Etymology From Middle English hothous, equivalent to hot + house.
1
A heated greenhouse.
2
Figuratively An environment in which growth or development is encouraged naturally or artificially; a hotbed.
This had given him the strength to leave cadet school at seventeen and volunteer for active service, reach the rank of second lieutenant no later than his hothouse-bred contemporaries, begin his military studies in the General Staff Academy itself, and, still only twenty-five, graduate not only with top marks but with promotion out of turn for special excellence in military science.1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 163:
In 1906 and 1907 defeat was not yet total, society was still on the boil, spinning around the rim of the maelstrom. Lenin had sat in Kuokkala, waiting in vain for the second wave. But from 1908, when the reactionary rabble had tightened its grip on the whole of Russia, the underground had shriveled to nothing, the workers had swarmed like ants out of their holes and into legal bodies—trade unions and insurance associations—and the decline of the underground had sapped the vitality of the emigration too, reduced it to a hothouse existence. Back there was the Duma, a legal press—and every émigré was eager to publish there.1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 182:
1 more example
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, Lindsey Fitzharris, The Facemaker, page 53:
3
An environment full of conflict or plots.
As with much of Carsley's reign, England entered this Athens hothouse with sub-plots in the background, this time the nine withdrawals from the squad which was met with a critical public response from the normally strictly-on-message captain Harry Kane.2024 November 14, Phil McNulty, “'A night of redemption for Carsley offers real hope for Tuchel'”, in BBC Sport:
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 (first performance), B. I. [i.e., Ben Jonson], The Comicall Satyre of Euery Man out of His Humor. […], London: […] [Adam Islip] for William Holme, […], published 1600, →OCLC, Act IV, scene iii, signature [L iiij], verso:
and now she professes a / hot-house, which I think is a very ill house too.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 64:
5
A heated room for drying greenware.
6
Climatology, Natural sciences 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, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Kruban:
Etymology From Middle English hothous, equivalent to hot + house.
1
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 early2019, Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other, Penguin Books (2020), page 245: