hothouse

noun

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.”

   “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.”

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.”

4. (obsolete)A bagnio, or bathing house; a brothel.

   “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.”

   “and now she professes a / hot-house, which I think is a very ill house too.”

5. A heated room for drying greenware.
6. A hot state in global climate.

   “Kruban is a tidally-locked Venusian hothouse, its surface perpetually obscured by clouds of sulfur and carbon dioxides.”

verb

1. (transitive)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 early”