Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An edible, gelatinous, greenish substance lying beneath the upper shell of a turtle.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In cookery, that part of a turtle which belongs to the upper shield, consisting of a fatty gelatinous substance of a dull-greenish color. Also spelled callipash.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A part of a turtle which is next to the upper shell. It contains a fatty and gelatinous substance of a dull greenish tinge, much esteemed as a delicacy in preparations of turtle.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The edible greenish material found underneath the upper half of a turtle's carapace (shell).

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Possibly alteration of Spanish carapacho, carapace.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French carapace, Spanish carapacho.

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Examples

  • Dobbin helped him to it; for the lady of the house, before whom the tureen was placed, was so ignorant of the contents, that she was going to help Mr. Sedley without bestowing upon him either calipash or calipee.

    Vanity Fair 2006

  • Even the celebrated Jew himself, when well filled with calipash and calipee, goes contentedly home to tell his money, and expects no more pleasure from his throat during the next twenty-four hours.

    The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon 2004

  • He would show them the pools under the Mansion House where these creatures luxuriate while awaiting their doom; he would indicate the areas beneath the shell from some of which is extracted the calipash and from some the calipee; he might even induce the Most Worshipful

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, January 29, 1919 Various

  • Dobbin helped him to it; for the lady of the house, before whom the tureen was placed, was so ignorant of the contents, that she was going to help Mr. Sedley without bestowing upon him either calipash or calipee.

    XXVI. Between London and Chatham 1917

  • Even the celebrated Jew himself, when well filled with calipash and calipee, goes contentedly home to tell his money, and expects no more pleasure from his throat during the next twenty-four hours.

    The Works of Henry Fielding, Volume Six: Miscellanies 1900

  • I was remarking that sangaree and calipash, mangoes and guava jelly, dispose the heart to love, and so they do.

    Charles O'Malley — Volume 1 Charles James Lever 1839

  • Dobbin helped him to it; for the lady of the house, before whom the tureen was placed, was so ignorant of the contents, that she was going to help Mr. Sedley without bestowing upon him either calipash or calipee.

    Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1837

  • The accommodation to fat citizens, and western _gourmands_, would be excellent, the very height of luxury and refinement -- inhaling the salubrious breeze one moment, and gurgling down the glutinous calipash the next; no ~277~~exactions of impudent waiters, or imposing landlords, or complaints of dying from hunger, or choking from the want of time to masticate; but every wish gratified and every sense employed.

    The English Spy An Original Work Characteristic, Satirical, And Humorous. Comprising Scenes And Sketches In Every Rank Of Society, Being Portraits Drawn From The Life Robert Cruikshank 1828

  • Even the celebrated Jew himself, when well filled with calipash and calipee, goes contentedly home to tell his money, and expects no more pleasure from his throat during the next twenty-four hours.

    Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon — Volume 1 Henry Fielding 1730

  • The tortise — as the alderman of Bristol, well learned in eating, knows by much experience — besides the delicious calipash and calipee, contains many different kinds of food; nor can the learned reader be ignorant, that in human nature, though here collected under one general name, is such prodigious variety, that a cook will have sooner gone through all the several species of animal and vegetable food in the world, than an author will be able to exhaust so extensive a subject.

    The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling 2004

Comments

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  • George pooh-poohed the wine and bullied the waiters royally, and Jos gobbled the turtle with immense satisfaction. Dobbin helped him to it; for the lady of the house, before whom the tureen was placed, was so ignorant of the contents, that she was going to help Mr. Sedley without bestowing upon him either calipash or calipee.

    - Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. 26

    November 21, 2008