boiled dinner
- noun
- /bɔɪld ˈdɪnər/
- US
:
cena hervida
- Every Sunday, my family would gather to share a hearty boiled dinner of corned beef and vegetables.
- New England boiled dinner
Examples
-
After three, I noticed we were eating Duffy’s boiled dinner, and it tasted great.
Fiction book (1995) -
New England boiled dinner tonight.
-
Milton liked New England boiled dinner.
Fiction book (1990) -
We had just finished another boiled dinner: ring bologna, potatoes, and onions when he struck me on the back.
Fiction book (1990) -
Lunch was made of breakfast leftovers carried to the worksite in buckets, and suppers were one-pot meals or "boiled dinners," put on to cook in the morning and served up when people returned to quarters.
Academic text (1999) -
On cold days, we often enjoyed a boiled dinner with corned beef, cabbage, and carrots.
-
She placed the boiled dinner of corned beef and potatoes on the table, filling the room with a comforting aroma.
Synonyms
110
1.0
A dish of meat or fish and vegetables cooked slowly in liquid
1
2.7
A stew of meat and potatoes cooked slowly in a covered pot
1
3.3
A stew of meat and potatoes cooked slowly in a covered pot
A dish of corned beef boiled with cabbage, potatoes, and carrots
A thick soup with meat and vegetables
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally built: 'boiled' (food cooked in boiling liquid) modifies 'dinner' (main meal), so a learner who knows both words will infer it denotes a meal of food prepared by boiling. While it can refer to a specific regional dish (corned beef with vegetables), the core meaning is directly derivable from the constituents.
Etymology
The name boiled dinner comes from the image of a large pot where the boiled meat and vegetables are cooked together to make a full dinner. That's why it now means 'a meal of corned beef with cabbage and other vegetables all cooked in one pot'.