Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A hard biscuit or bread made with only flour and water. Also called sea biscuit, sea bread, ship biscuit.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Large, coarse, hard biscuit baked without salt and kiln-dried, much used by sailors and soldiers: ship-biscuit.
- n. Same as hardhead, 6.
Wiktionary
- n. nautical A large, hard biscuit made from unleavened flour and water; formerly used as a long-term staple food aboard ships.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A name given by soldiers and sailors to a kind of unleavened hard biscuit or sea bread. Called also
pilot biscuit ,pilot bread ,ship biscuit andship bread - n. Any of several mahogany trees, esp. the Cercocarpus betuloides.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a mountain mahogany
- n. very hard unsalted biscuit or bread; a former ship's staple
Examples
““A new delicacy I found out about,” he said, and looked sidelong at Picard, “called hardtack.””
“On the card was this message: "The Bible says, 'Love your enemies' -- here is an enemy for you to conquer," for it was a well-known fact that grandfather found it hard to overcome his dislike of the "hardtack," as he denominated the beaten biscuit prepared for him.”
“With their brains we made a paste which, together with "hardtack," resulted in a delicious sandwich, resembling pâté de foie gras.”
Head Hunters of the Amazon: Seven Years of Exploration and Adventure
“Some of our first stores purchased were "hardtack" and corned beef, which we found we could procure from the steward of a Liverpool boat which was anchored off-shore.”
Head Hunters of the Amazon: Seven Years of Exploration and Adventure
“Pinetop, who was leisurely eating his breakfast of "hardtack" and bacon, took a long draught from his tin cup, and replied, as he wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve, that he "reckoned thar wouldn't be any trouble about finding room for them, too.”
“Water for drink, for fevered wounds and burning throats, they had in abundance; but the last "hardtack" had been shared, the last scrap of bacon long since devoured.”
“During the day a line of men came single file over the hill near the camp, each bearing on his shoulder a box of "hardtack" or crackers.”
Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865
“She wondered if this was what she’d read about in history books, what pioneering Americans had called hardtack.”
“Starting at sunrise, we paddled and poled till noon, when we rested and ate" hardtack, "roast alligator (the remains of the white one), farinha (a kind of tapioca made from arrowroot, and one of the staple foods of Brazil), and molasses.”
Head Hunters of the Amazon: Seven Years of Exploration and Adventure
“One and all, from the cook to Buckwheat, they swear they have no knowledge of any food for'ard, save the small supply in the galley and the barrel of hardtack in the forecastle.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hardtack’.
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Mandles, Candles for Men
candles with a "manly" scent
a1 steak sauce, baseball glove, grillin' out, campfire, pigskin, bowling alley, musty locker room, chuck norris sweat, urinal deodorizer, bait shop, wet dog, hardware store and 210 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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Wonderful bread
baguette, bialy, pumpernickel, boule, brioche, challah, chapati, cornbread, dosa, mantou, flatbread, focaccia and 102 more...
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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azd's Words
adamantine, abatial, ablate, ablative, abrogate, accretive, acromegaly, acrostic, actinism, actinic, acuity, adduce and 968 more...
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Whaleworthy & Piratical Words
A list of favorite nautical words to be sprinkled liberally throughout speech for piratical or Melvillian effect.
batten down, back and fill, beamy, baulking, beckets, bilge, bold shore, boomjumper, breaker, larboard, abaft, ash breeze and 156 more...
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srboisvert's Words
couverture, poffertjes, naif, endermatic, prepense, aspic, otalgia, curettage,, florid, piffling, pillock, mow and 164 more...
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whaling terms
Terms defined in the glossary of Clifford W. Ashley's "Yankee Whaler".
advance, adze, after house, after oar, agent, air up, alow, ambergris, apeak, article, away, bailer and 299 more...
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Ahoy!
Drink up me 'earties!
barnacle, cutlass, grog, blunderbuss, plunder, buccaneer, parlay, doubloon, keelhaul, scallywag, avast, hornswaggle and 15 more...
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Man Cannot Live on Bread Alone
Types of bread products
pumpernickel, sourdough, rye, oatmeal, cornbread, multigrain, challah, naan, pita, tortilla, croissant, anadama and 67 more...
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Tack
Sharp as in tack
tackle, attack, tack, gear, zigzag, taque, tick-tack, tick-tack-toe, ticktacktoe, hardtack, tacky, ticky-tacky and 7 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hardtack.
hernesheir Sometimes, it's a tree, but almost never a duricrust. Jan 2, 2013