bubble and squeak en · NOUN
Etymology
(food): Named from the sounds during cooking.
Meanings
-
(Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, countable, uncountable) Cabbage and mashed potatoes etc. fried together.
“But if she had rank and title?” “Rank and title! Bubble and squeak! No, not half so good as bubble and squeak. English beef and good cabbage. But foreign rank and title!—foreign cabbage and beef!—foreign bubble and foreign squeak!”
1853, Pisistratus Caxton [pseudonym; Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter VIII, in “My Novel”; Or Varieties in English Life […], volume II, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book eighth, page 348:“Better have it—better have it first. No hurry. What've you got in the pot that smells so good?” “Bubble and squeak, sir.” “Bubble and squeak! Ah!” And with those words the agent withdrew to where, in a farm wagon drawn up by the side of the road, three men were solemnly pulling at their pipes.
1915, John Galsworthy, chapter XVIII, in The Freelands:
- (Cockney, countable, slang, uncountable) A Greek.
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| bubble and squeaks | Number=Plur | lexicographic |