Swageĭerived from the verb assuage, meaning to ease or alleviate, swage is an old British dialect word that can be used to mean to take in food, to let your stomach settle, or, most importantly, "to relax after a good meal." A swager, incidentally, is a long, thirst-quenching drink. Sadly it doesn’t seem to have caught on-the Oxford English Dictionary has unearthed no other record of the word in print since, but that’s not to say that it isn’t worth remembering: It very usefully describes any meal or plate of food that’s cooked or thrown together in haste. The adjective speustic first appeared in a 17th century dictionary called Glossographia (1656) by the English lexicographer Thomas Blount. Rassasyĭating back to the 15th century (and derived from the same root as words like satiate and satisfy), to rassasy someone is to satisfy them with a great meal, or else to satiate someone’s hunger with food. A small snack eaten immediately after a meal, meanwhile, is a postpast, the opposite of which is an antepast, eaten as an appetizer or starter. The forenoon is the portion of the day between waking up in the morning and midday, which makes a forenoons a brunch or a light snack taken between breakfast and lunch. Tarnisher is an old Scots and Irish dialect word for a huge meal.
An 18th-century dialect word from the southwest of England, traditionally the linnard would have their tardiness punished by being made to clean up afterwards. The linnard is the last member of a group to finish their meal. … or growk, which means to stare at someone intently and expectantly, hoping that they give you some of their food.
And if you know anyone like that, you’ll likely need to the know the word. One was “a feast at which the guests are supposed to feed upon the odors only of the viands,” but the word’s original meaning, dating back to the early 16th century, is “one who is apt to find and frequent good tables”-in other words, a scrounger or moocher who steals your food or expects you to feed them. Noah Webster gave two definitions for a smell-feast. Gut has been used to mean the stomach (or, originally, the abdomen and its contents) since the Old English period, and is the root of a host of gluttonous words like gut-foundered, which means hungry to the point of near starvation gut-head, a 17th century word for someone who appears dull and slow witted from overeating and gut-gullie, an old Scots dialect verb meaning to overeat or eat greedily.
#Another word for amazing free#
Feel free also to call a large meal or fine food a spreadation (19th century), a waffle-frolic (18th century American English), and belly-cheer (16th century English). BouffageĪnother word for a grand feast is bouffage, a term from the 17th century derived from an older French word for “any meat that (eaten greedily) fills the mouth and makes the cheeks to swell,” according to 17th century lexicographer Randle Cotgrave.
At one time, however, a junket was a vast merrymaking feast or banquet, where food and drink were consumed in large amounts, which in turn derives from the earlier 16th-century use of junket to refer to a dainty sweet treat or delicacy. Nowadays, the word junkettends only to be used to refer to political or press junkets-trips for politicians or journalists, at another’s expense, for promotional purposes. Expand your vocabulary, as well as your Yule-hole, with these 14 words for food-lovers. But what English lacks in words for dishes and delicacies, it more than makes up for in words to do with the end result-eating and enjoying food. It’s easy to think that when it comes to words related to food, English probably takes second place behind French, which has given us a whole glossary of culinary terms from ingredients and elements ( béchamel, mirepoix, bouquet garni) to cooking methods and processes ( fricassée, au gratin, chiffonade), to complete dishes and delicacies ( cassoulet, apéritif, amuse-bouche, crudités).