Hooverize
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 To be economical in the use of a resource, particularly food. dated, intransitive, transitive
"The clean plate is the slogan of today, / And we this vital war-cry must obey, / And waste no single particle or crust / And save the scraps, for now we really must / Hooverize! / The empty garbage pail is now the rage, / And in this ‘war on waste’ which we must wage / To throw away an egg shell will be sin / So if, with great success, we are to win, / Hooverize! / Things must be canned which never were before, / We must have fruits and vegetables galore, / There must be lots of corn and beets and beans, / And to us all this warning simple means, / Hooverize! / Our soldiers must be fed in France and here, / To all of us our soldiers are most dear, / And we must ‘do our bit’ and help along, / And every one of us must sing the song, / Hooverize! / ‘Conserve your food supply and win the war,’ / All of you have read these words before, / But when you red them now remember you / Have got your ‘little bit’ cut out to do— / So Hooverize!"
- 2 Alternative form of Hooverize. alt-of, alternative
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"The clean plate is the slogan of today, / And we this vital war-cry must obey, / And waste no single particle or crust / And save the scraps, for now we really must / Hooverize! / The empty garbage pail is now the rage, / And in this ‘war on waste’ which we must wage / To throw away an egg shell will be sin / So if, with great success, we are to win, / Hooverize! / Things must be canned which never were before, / We must have fruits and vegetables galore, / There must be lots of corn and beets and beans, / And to us all this warning simple means, / Hooverize! / Our soldiers must be fed in France and here, / To all of us our soldiers are most dear, / And we must ‘do our bit’ and help along, / And every one of us must sing the song, / Hooverize! / ‘Conserve your food supply and win the war,’ / All of you have read these words before, / But when you red them now remember you / Have got your ‘little bit’ cut out to do— / So Hooverize!"
Etymology
From Hoover + -ize, named after Herbert Hoover, who, as head of the Food and Drug Administration during World War I, encouraged Americans to ration food. Apparently coined in the poem reproduced below.