Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A British sailor: so called because he is obliged by law to use lime-juice at sea as an antiscorbutic.
- n. Hence A British ship on which the lime-juice law is carried out.
- n. In Australia, a new-comer; one who has made the voyage on a lime-juicer; a greenhorn; a ‘new chum.’
Examples
“And we were near him, on the poop, when he drove by an east-bound lime-juicer, hove-to under upper-topsails.”
“Yes, she's a lime-juicer," he remarked, and something like a sigh escaped him.”
The Moving Picture Girls at Sea or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real
“On the Lord Summerville was a mad Pennsylvania boy who had, like myself, gone to sea for the first time ... but he had had no uncle to beat timidity into him ... and he had dared ship as able seaman on the big sky-sailed lime-juicer, and had gloriously acquitted himself.”
“On the _Lord Summerville_ was a mad Pennsylvania boy who had, like myself, gone to sea for the first time ... but he had had no uncle to beat timidity into him ... and he had dared ship as able seaman on the big sky-sailed lime-juicer, and had gloriously acquitted himself.”
“At noon we picked up a ship ahead, a lime-juicer, travelling in the same direction, under lower-topsails and one upper-topsail.”
“I saw it done when I was second mate on a lime-juicer," Captain Ward spoke up.”
“He had sailed always on French merchant vessels, with the one exception of a voyage on a "lime-juicer.”
“a foreign cargo of lumber into the lime-juicer; then her mate steals all the paint in the Britisher's lazaret.”
“And, though lime juice isn't as needful as it was, 'cause they have other things that do as well, perhaps, I always think of a Britisher as a lime-juicer. ”
The Moving Picture Girls at Sea or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real
“By the everlastin ', if I was younger I'd ship aboard a British lime-juicer and go and fight, myself! ”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘lime-juicer’.
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Out to Sea
If I had a boat
I'd go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat.boat, ship, skiff, barge, canoe, catamaran, yacht, scow, lifeboat, launch, ketch, dory and 303 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...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for lime-juicer.
chained_bear I can attest to that "application to all English people" thing, though in my experience 1) it was applied more frequently to men rather than women, and 2) the Australians I knew were positively gleeful in applying it especially to those Brits who took offense.
I didn't know it could be a ship though. Feb 23, 2009
reesetee Yes, I'd forgotten to add that. Thanks. Feb 21, 2009
mollusque Also applied to British ships. Feb 21, 2009
reesetee A "pejorative term applied in the mid-19th cent. by Americans and Australians to British sailors who had for the past half century been issued lime juice as a preventive of scurvy. By the early-20th cent. the term had been shortened to Limey, and by the end of WWI the shortened form was being applied, without prejudice, to all Englishmen, whether sailor or not. (Nevertheless, the general nickname must have been about as easy to take, for the average Englishman, as "Yank" was for the average Southern American.)" -- Food: A Dictionary of Literal and Nonliteral Terms, 2000.
Feb 21, 2009