Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A sailor's stew made of meat, vegetables, and hardtack.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A dish made of pilot-biscuit, stewed in water with pieces of salt meat.
Wiktionary
- n. nautical A dish of meat stewed with vegetables and ship biscuit.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Naut.) A combination of meat with vegetables, bread, etc., usually stewed, sometimes baked; an olio.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a stew of meat and vegetables and hardtack that is eaten by sailors
Etymologies
- From German Labskaus (Wiktionary)
- Perhaps dialectal lob, to bubble + scouse, of unknown origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“It was what the sailors called lobscouse, a sort of pudding made of ship biscuits, liver, and fish.”
“The steward presently brought along from the galley the chief ingredients of the supper, consisting of a pot of piping hot cocoa and a dish of steaming "lobscouse", to be followed, he informed me, by a jam tart.”
“But long before the cook's husky notes summoned the emigrants 'messmen to the galley, to receive their morning allowance of cocoa and their tins of "lobscouse", all hands were on deck, the emigrants gathered in the waist of the ship, leaning over the lee rail, and devouring with their eyes the beauties of the lovely island, fresh, green, and sparkling with the dews of the past night.”
“lobscouse" which the darkey cook had dished up most appetisingly; after which the good lady retired to her cabin for the night in much more cheerful spirits.”
“Angus ThomsonStreatley, Berkshire• Labskaus (Letters, 19 March) is only an anomalous variation of lobscouse (lapskaus in Norwegian), a sailor's stew with meat and vegetables (without meat, blindscouse) found across northern Europe but most famously associated with Liverpool, being eponymous with its natives, dialect and local dish.”
“Dinah HickishSt Asaph, Clwyd• Re the variations of labskaus/lobscouse Letters, 22 March: Liverpool may call its stew scouse, but the word has also travelled down to Stoke, where it's called lobby.”
“In Liverpool he instantly identifies lobscouse, a stew originally eaten by Baltic sailors and eponymous with the city, while he uncovers the historical link between Wigan and pies.”
“Eating "seemans labskaus" for dinner in Hamburg -- that is, "seaman's lobscouse," a dish Jack and Stephen eat in Patrick O'Brian which of course is why I ordered it.”
“I could live on lobscouse, or soap and bully, for a year, and thank God for getting more than I deserved.”
“He declared the Widow Gallup did not know how to make a decent chowder, anyway; and as for lobscouse, or the proper frying of a mess of”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘lobscouse’.
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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 11184 more...
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250 Cherry-Picked Words
Juicy words for the intermediate and advanced speller
consomme, miniaceous, nankeen, smaragdine, stramineous, vitellary, allemande, beguine, bransle, charabanc, margaritaceous, chaconne and 238 more...
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Amusing Nautical Words
coxswain, mizzenmast, boomjumper, abaft, cuddy, theodolite, gurrybutt, lily iron, yaw, lobscouse, orlop, dreadnought
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The Aubrey/Maturin List I'm Gonna Mak...
I'm wading through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels one by one, and someday, I'll wade through them again and list all the words I learned while reading them.
Edit: I started ma...studdingsail, carronade, mumchance, grumlin-futtocks, crosscat-harpings, holystone, sennit, orlop, orchitis, negus, kevel, altumal and 1112 more...
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Favorites!
These are just cool words. Either they mean something interesting, or they sound neat.
aspidistra, acrimonious, floccinaucinihili..., mulligatawny, avgolemono, lobscouse, lethologica, petrichor, apricity, pamplemousse
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An Intermediate Course of Random Pala...
A third uncategorized list of words that catch my eye or fancy. Common or regional names and terms, names of foods and food preparation utensils, bird, plant and animal names, jargon words, and od...
lobscouse, skillygalee, skilly, skippaug, pauhagen, paughaden, poghaden, poggie, pog, skoodle, reef goose, reezle and 138 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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Wordie/Wordnik Curio Cabinet
Oddments culled from my "main" lists that belong in a display cabinet of their own, plus sundry other curiosities. :-)
zeugma, ziggurat, xiphoid, xeric, whizgigging, whangdoodle, viviparous, vivific, vinolent, verjuice, vellicate, velleity and 1193 more...
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cooked words
cook, cuisine, kitchen, quittor, apricot, precocious, biscotto, biscuit, charcuterie, concoct, decoct, ricotta and 89 more...
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Fun menu items
spotted dick, bubble and squeak, toad in the hole, pets de nonnes, pigs in a blanket, prairie oysters, ropa vieja, manchamanteles, arme ritter, schwalbennester, strammer max, cabeza de gato and 119 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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Into the mix
A medley of mixtures, mostly ones where the constituents are still distinct. I tagged kinds of stew.
mixture, commixture, admixture, intermixture, intermingling, commingling, mingling, marriage, union, integration, syncretion, permutation and 129 more...
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Nautical Terms
And I think I shall always need more of these, though the obvious ones can be ignored... give me obscure words I have never heard before, and let me learn them!
wung out, saburrate, tropaean, haurient, shroud, wing-and-wing, studding sail, jetsam, trajectitious, lubbards, mutaine, ait and 17 more...
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perhapsolutely's Words
polyradiculoneuro..., abulia, abubble, abscission, abaft, zareba, abatis, abigail, abiogenesis, ablate, ablaut, abo and 1705 more...
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Athos's list
nincompoop, quakebuttock, plebeian, lobscouse, balderdash, antipyretic
Tweets
Looking for tweets for lobscouse.
yarb - which I understand is where the dish came from originally. May 6, 2009
heidikraut in Bremen and Hamburg this is labskaus or lapskaus - May 6, 2009
chained_bear "...this was a rich man's lobscouse, a Lord Mayor's lobscouse. Orrage had been wonderfully generous with his slush, and the liquid fat stood half an inch deep over the whole surface, while the potatoes and pounded biscuit that ordinarily made up the bulk of the dish could scarcely be detected at all, being quite overpowered by the fat meat, fried onions, and powerful spices."
--Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World, 93 Feb 20, 2008
chained_bear "He would not even stop long enough to take in fresh supplies from the bum-boats that came round the ship, observing in his decided manner 'that they were not here to blow out their kites with lobscouse, nor to choke their luffs with figgy-dowdy, but to convey the Catalan troops to Santandero without a moment's loss of time...'"
--Patrick O'Brian, The Surgeon's Mate, 287 Feb 9, 2008