scuttle-butt

See also: scuttlebutt

English

Noun

scuttle-butt (plural scuttle-butts)

1. Alternative form of scuttlebutt
   • 1830, [Frederick Marryat], chapter VIII, in The King’s Own. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 93–94:

     [S]o they continue to fire as directed, until they are either sent down to the cock-pit themselves, or have a momentary respite from their exertions, when, choaked with smoke and gunpowder, they go aft to the scuttle-butt, to remove their parching thirst.

   • 1840, R[ichard] H[enry] D[ana], Jr., chapter XXXII, in Two Years before the Mast. […] (Harper’s Family Library; no. CVI), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers […], →OCLC, page 407:

     In this way, with an occasional break by relieving the wheel, heaving the log, and going to the scuttle-butt for a drink of water, the longest watch was passed away; […]

   • 1850, Herman Melville, “A Man-of-War Fountain, and Other Things”, in White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, publishers; London: Richard Bentley, published 1855, →OCLC, page 332:

     The scuttle-butt is a goodly, round, painted cask, standing on end, and with its upper head removed, showing a narrow circular shelf within, where rest a number of tin cups for the accommodation of drinkers. Central, within the scuttle-butt itself, stands an iron pump, which, connecting with the immense water-tanks in the hold, furnishes an unfailing supply of the much-admired Pale Ale, first brewed in the brooks of the Garden of Eden, and stamped with the brand of our old father Adam, who never knew what wine was.

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Hark!”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 217:

     It was the middle-watch: a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-butt.

   • 1880, W[illiam] Clark Russell, “The Survivors of the ‘Waldershare’”, in A Sailor’s Sweetheart. […], volume II, London: Sampson Low, Searle & Rivington, […], →OCLC, pages 273–274:

     [T]he scuttle-butts are on the starboard side of the galley. You will find a bottle on one of them that will serve as a dipper. Drink moderately, for your life's sake, and get a pannikin from the galley and bring it aft, filled.

Verb

scuttle-butt (third-person singular simple present scuttle-butts, present participle scuttle-butting, simple past and past participle scuttle-butted)

1. Alternative form of scuttlebutt
   • 1946, John LaCerda, “Whitecaps on the Moat”, in The Conqueror Comes to Tea: Japan under MacArthur, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, →OCLC, pages 97–98:

     During the fighting for Manila, it was scuttle-butted among the troops that they must never put pin-up pictures on the walls of the Manila Hotel because Mrs. [Douglas] MacArthur owned fifty per cent of the property and Brigadier General Courtney Whitney, of MacArthur's staff, owned the other half.