ship biscuit
- noun
- Archaic
:
galleta de barco
- A ship biscuit can last for years if kept dry.
Examples
-
Historians found fragments of ship biscuit in shipwrecks dating back to the 18th century.
-
The ship biscuit was so hard it had to be soaked in water before eating.
-
During the long voyage, sailors survived mainly on ship biscuit and salted meat.
-
The sailors stored ship biscuits for long voyages.
-
The sailors packed enough ship biscuits to last throughout their long journey across the ocean.
-
For their survival at sea, they relied heavily on ship biscuits that could withstand long storage without spoiling.
-
During the age of sail, ship biscuits were a crucial part of sailors' diets, providing essential sustenance on voyages.
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 unsalted biscuit sailors used to eat on long sea voyages
A very hard plain biscuit that keeps for a long time and sailors use on ships
A very hard dry biscuit that sailors kept on ships to eat
How Hard
Surface Forms
Morphology
ship + biscuit
The noun phrase is a transparent attributive compound: a ‘biscuit’ associated with or used on a ‘ship’, so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes a type of biscuit for ships. The specialized historical sense (very hard, long‑lasting staple) is more specific, but the basic idea (a ship’s biscuit) is directly derivable from the constituents.
Etymology
Ship biscuit comes from long sea voyages when sailors baked very hard, dry biscuits to keep on a ship for many months. These biscuits were so tough they had to be soaked in water before eating, so ship biscuit came to mean 'very hard, long-lasting bread'.