slop chest
- noun
- /slɑp tʃɛst/
- Archaic
:
baúl de ropa
- The sailors visited the slop chest to buy new uniforms for the upcoming voyage.
Examples
-
The slop chest on board could certainly furnish these, but I did not mean to spend the money.
Fiction book (1995) -
At the end of the month, the captain made sure the slop chest was stocked with fresh clothing for the crew.
-
After a long week at sea, the crew members eagerly browsed the slop chest for personal supplies.
Synonyms
A person who offers cheap ready-made clothes for working people
Surface Forms
Morphology
slop + chest
The compound relies on a specialized nautical sense of 'slop' (slops = ready-made clothing for sailors) that is rare or archaic; an average B1 learner who knows the common sense of 'slop' (e.g. liquid waste or to spill) plus 'chest' would not infer 'store for clothing' from the constituents. Because the key lexical sense required is jargon-specific and not a predictable extension of the common meanings, the expression is effectively idiomatic for learners.
Etymology
Slop chest comes from life on merchant ships: sailors bought loose, ready-made clothes called slops from a chest kept on board. So, slop chest means 'a ship's store where clothing and small items are sold'.
