Scuttlebutt

Quick meaning: Scuttlebutt is a noun meaning (uncountable, originally US, nautical slang) Gossip, idle chatter; also, rumour.

Meaning

(uncountable, originally US, nautical slang) Gossip, idle chatter; also, rumour.

More Meanings

1. (transitive, rare) To spread (information) by way of gossip or rumour.
2. (intransitive) To chat idly or gossip; also, to spread rumours.
3. (countable, nautical) Originally (now chiefly historical), a cask with a hole cut into its top, used to provide drinking water on board a ship; now (by extension, informal), a drinking fountain on a modern ship.

Example Sentences

During the midwatch a radioman striker (that is, a seaman trying to advance to radioman third class) was taking a drink of water from the third-deck scuttlebutt.

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; […]

[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.

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.

Word Forms

• scuttlebutts
• scuttle-butt
• scuttlebutting
• scuttlebutted

Synonyms for scuttlebutt

Depending on context, synonyms include furphy, babble, bavardage, bibble-babble, blab, blabber.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include comment, gossip, info, talk, rumor, scuttle-butt.

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