sea biscuit
- noun
- /siː ˈbɪskɪt/
- Archaic
:
galleta de mar
- To prepare for the journey, the crew stored bags of sea biscuits in the hold, ensuring they would not go hungry.
Examples
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The survival pack included essentials like water, beans, and sea biscuits for nourishment.
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During long voyages, sailors often relied on sea biscuits as a staple food due to their long shelf life.
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Can I get the sea biscuit?
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I got on my knees, remembering two hard sea biscuits that were still in my trunk.
Blog text (6)
Synonyms
45
1.0
A small soft round bread roll often eaten with butter
3
9.9
A very hard dry biscuit that sailors and soldiers ate long ago
A very hard dry bread sailors soaked before eating on long sea trips
A very hard dry biscuit that sailors kept on ships to eat
A very hard plain biscuit that keeps for a long time and sailors use on ships
A thin, crisp biscuit often eaten with cheese
How Hard
Surface Forms
Morphology
sea + biscuit
The compound is a literal composition of 'sea' (associated with sailors/ships) and 'biscuit' (a baked bread/cookie), so a learner who knows both words can readily infer it refers to a type of biscuit used on ships — i.e., durable ship's bread. This sense (hardtack/ship's biscuit) is cross-linguistically common and follows transparent noun-noun compounding, making the meaning accessible to B1 learners.
Etymology
Sea biscuit comes from life on ships: sailors kept very hard, dry biscuit on the sea for long trips and often had to break or soak it before eating. That's why sea biscuit means 'a very hard, unsalted biscuit sailors used as food on long trips'.