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  1. slumgullion love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A watery meat stew.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. Offal or refuse of fish of any kind; also, the watery refuse, mixed with blood and oil, which drains from blubber.
  2. n. 2. A cheap drink.
  3. n. A servant; one who represents another.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A stew of meat and vegetables.
  2. n. A beverage made watery, such as weak coffee or tea.
  3. n. A reddish muddy deposit in mining sluices.
  4. n. A sperm whaleman's term, roughly equivalent to the right whaleman's "gurry" which, according to Herman Melville, "designates the dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the Greenland or Right Whale, and much of which covers the decks of those inferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan."(Melville 323) Derivation for this term likely originates with the word "slobgollion" which is, according to Melville's Moby Dick, "an appellation original with the whaleman, and even so is the nature of the substance. It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting. I hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured Membranes of the case, coalescing." (Melville 323)

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a thin stew of meat and vegetables

Etymologies

  1. Perhaps slum, muddy deposit in a mining sluice + dialectal gullion, mud (perhaps from Irish Gaelic goilín, pit). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “The name "Slumgullion Pass" came about because the color of the sliding mud reminded local gold miners of the muddy sediments, called slumgullion, in their sluice boxes.”

    The Vail Trail - All Sections

  • “Station food isn't merely bad; it's condemned army bacon and "slumgullion," a concoction that "pretended to be tea" but contained "too much dish-rag, and sand, and old bacon-rind ... to deceive the intelligent traveler.”

    The Wall Street Journal: Twain's American Journey

  • “•Kathy Eaton of Booneville, Miss., recalls a cast-iron-skillet-style potato dish called "slumgullion," or so she thinks, after watching an old episode of Gunsmoke, which she learned from her father, "who would be 103 this year.”

    USA Today: Father's Day contest brims with memories, recipes

  • “With a mocking gurgle, about a dram of "slumgullion" passed into his mouth.”

    The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch

  • “The saturated red soil overflowed the brim with that liquid ooze known as "slumgullion," and turned the crystal pool to the color of blood until the soil was washed away.”

    From Sand Hill to Pine

  • “His fondness for paddling in the ditches and "slumgullion" at one time suggested a water spaniel.”

    Selected Stories of Bret Harte

  • “His breast, legs, and feet -- when not reddened by "slumgullion," in which he was fond of wading -- were white.”

    Selected Stories of Bret Harte

  • “A few days after Raintree took it over, he was lookin 'round the garden, which old Sobriente had always kept shut up agin strangers, and he finds a lot of dried-up' slumgullion'* scattered all about the borders and beds, just as if the old man had been using it for fertilizing.”

    Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation

  • “A dank, fresh-fishy smell pervades the atmosphere; and such houses as were open to public view bore evident signs of inundation on the walls and 'slumgullion' on the floors.”

    The Recent Floods in Sacramento Valley, California

  • “slumgullion" isn't a complimentary reference to goulash, you can move on to calling Rep. Murtha a "swag-bellied wagtail"!”

    The Reality Check

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hypernyms (1)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. stew

reverse dictionary (1)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. lipper

tags (4)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. food
  1. stew
  1. gullion
  1. disgusting food

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Comments

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  • arby NOUN: A watery meat stew.
    ETYMOLOGY: Perhaps slum, muddy deposit in a mining sluice + dialectal gullion, mud (perhaps from Irish Gaelic goilín, pit).
    -----------------------------------------------------------
    But didn't Shakespeare use it as an insult, or am I imagining things again? Mar 24, 2007

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‘slumgullion’ has been looked up 2515 times, loved by 5 people, added to 41 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 14.