cake and wine (uncountable)
- (US, naval slang) A restricted diet of bread and water, imposed as a disciplinary measure.
1980, The Compass, volumes 50-52, page 26:After a week of privation on pound cake and white wine (strangely the Navy's slang for solitary confinement on bread and water was "cake and wine") Carlsen received warm nourishment.
2009, Chester A. Wright, Black Men and Blue Water, page 222:If one was 5 minutes late he got three days bread and water for a first offense. A second time got the culprit 5 days. Insolence and/or insubordination earned one a deck court-martial with 10 days on "cake and wine".
2011, Stephen Curley, The Ship That Would Not Die:[…] and the skipper threw him in the brig for five days on cake and wine (bread and water, in navy slang).
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cake, wine.