Slumgullion
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A stew of meat and vegetables. countable, uncountable
"“Say...if anybody cares, this vat of slumgullion is as ready as it will ever be.”"
- 2 a thin stew of meat and vegetables wordnet
- 3 A beverage made watery, such as weak coffee or tea. countable, uncountable
"Then he poured for us a beverage which he called “Slumgullion,” and it is hard to think he was not inspired when he named it. It really pretended to be tea, but there was too much dish-rag, and sand, and old bacon-rind in it to deceive the intelligent traveler."
- 4 A reddish muddy deposit in mining sluices. countable, uncountable
- 5 A waste product or byproduct from processing whales or fish. countable, uncountable
"There is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns up in the course of this business [of preparing sperm whale], but which I feel it to be very puzzling adequately to describe. It is called slobgollion[…] It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"“Say...if anybody cares, this vat of slumgullion is as ready as it will ever be.”"
Etymology
Uncertain, but said to derive from slime and Scots gullion (“swamp; cesspool”). Attested from the late nineteenth century in reference to a watery beverage (see quotation below). Compare Irish góilín (“a creek; a small inlet”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.