bully beef
- noun
- /ˈbʊli bɪf/
- Archaic
:
carne enlatada
- The recipe called for bully beef, which added a savory flavor to the stew.
- tinned bully beef
Examples
-
During the camping trip, we relied on bully beef as a primary source of protein.
-
A star created from bully beef tins clumsily banged into hammered brightness with the butt of a Webley service revolver.
Fiction book (1999) -
We had been chucker with bully beef, our constant ration.
Fiction book (1991) -
Brown biscuit porridge and fried bully beef.
-
And bully beef to feed us ♪ ♪ Brand and burn and mark his hide ♪ ♪ And ride him everyday ♪ ♪ Yellow stripes are riding on ♪ ♪ Riding on our way ♪ ♪ We're riding ♪ ♪ On our way ♪♪
-
He and I took turns carrying half a gunnysack of tinned bully beef; we had a generous supply, and we had been informed that the stuff was an eligible present.
Fiction book (1991) -
♪ Yellow stripes ♪ ♪ On britches blue ♪ ♪ Riding on before us ♪ ♪ Beans and hardtack sourdough ♪ ♪ And bully beef to feed us ♪
-
Even if sitting in this flapping tent, bent over a map that keeps tearing loose in the dry wind, one can see no connection between what one is doing and this war against the Great Fiend, there's still something that so obviously unites the snows in Russia, thousands of kilometers from here, with the sand that I eat with my bully beef.
Fiction book (1993) -
When supplies were low, the soldiers often ate bully beef out of cans.
Synonyms
357
1.0
Meat from a cow or bull used for food
22
1.0
Beef cured in salty water that people eat hot or in sandwiches
1
1.8
Meat kept in a sealed can to last a long time
How Preserved
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound meaning 'canned/corned beef' is not derivable from the constituents as given: a B1 learner who knows 'bully' only as an archaic 'splendid' or as the common noun 'bully' would not infer a preserved, boiled/canned product. The term’s sense comes from a historical form (French bouilli ‘boiled’) and is idiomatic/lexicalized in English, so the meaning is unpredictable from its parts.
Etymology
Bully beef may come from the French word 'bouilli' (meaning 'boiled'), which English speakers pronounced like bully. Soldiers often ate this boiled meat from tins, so bully beef came to mean canned or preserved beef.