Howard Douglass' Pudding Definitions from the OED
NOUN:
pudding (______), n. Forms: 3-4 poding, 4-6 podyng, (6 -ynge),puddyng; 5 podding, -yng, (6 -ynge); poodyng; puddingh; 5-6 puddynge; 6 pooding, pooddyng, Sc. puding; 6- pudding, (6 -inge, 6-9 dial. and vulgar pudden, -in, 8 puden).
[ME. poding, puddyng: derivation uncertain: see Note below.] I. 1. a. The stomach or one of the entrails of a pig, sheep, or other animal, stuffed with a mixture of minced meat, suet, oatmeal, seasoning, etc., boiled and kept till needed; a kind of sausage: for different varieties, see black, hog's, white pudding. Now chiefly Sc. and dial.
c1305 Land Cokayne 59 Le pinnes bel fat podinges Rich met to princez and kinges.
1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. xiii. 62 He eet many sondry metes, mortrewes and puddynges.
c1430 Two Cookery-bks. 42 Puddyng of purpaysse..putte dis in de Gutte of de purpays.
c1440 Promp. Parv. 220/2 Hagas, puddynge (S. hakkys, puddyngys).
1530 Palsgr. 259 Puddyng, boudayn. Ibid. 265 Sausedge a podyng.
1584 Cogan Haven Health cxlix. (1636) 146 Of the inward of beasts are made Puddings, which are best of an hog.
1592 Nashe Four Lett. Confut. (1593) 28 Euery thing hath an end, and a pudding hath two.
1615 Markham Eng. Housew. (1660) 178 Pudding which is called the Haggas or Haggus, of whose goodnesse it is vain to boast.
1617 Moryson Itin. iii. ii. iii. 81 In lower Germany they supply the meale with bacon and great dried puddings, which puddings are sauory and so pleasant.
1659 Howell Proverbs, Lett. Advice, There must be Suet as well as Oatmeal to make a Pudding.
1712 Addison Spect. No. 269 _8 He had sent a string of Hogs-puddings..to every poor Family in the Parish.
17.. 'Get up and bar the door' vii, in Herd (1776), And first they ate the white puddings, And then they ate the black.
a1801 R. Gall Elegy Pudding Lizzie vii, The puddings, bairns, are just in season-They're newly made.
1819 Sporting Mag. V. 32 In Suffolk, black puddings made in guts are called links.
? b. A stuffing like the above, roasted within the body of the animal. Obs.
1596 Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, ii. iv. 498 That rosted Manning Tree Oxe with the Pudding in his Belly.
1771 E. Long Trial of Dog 'Porter' in Hone's Every-day Bk. II. 203 His worship had him [a hare] roasted, with a pudding in his belly.
2. (Chiefly pl.) The bowels, entrails, guts. Now dial. and Sc. [So OF. bodeyn, bowel, 14th c. in Godef.]
1444 Coventry Leet Bk. 208 Quod nullus deinceps lavet lez poodynges ad le condites sub consimili pena.
1530 Lyndesay Test. Papyngo 1157 Tak thare, said he, the puddyngis, for thy parte.
1573 L. Lloyd Marrow of Hist. (1653) 245 The Fox..did bite and scratch the young man so sore, that his puddings gushed out of his side.
1597 Lowe Chirurg. (1634) 107 They [windy tumours] are sometimes in the..capacity betwixt the puddings and periton.
1796 Pegge Anonym. (1809) 356 An antient monument in stone, of a Knight lying prostrate in armour, with what they call his puddings, or guts, twisted round his left arm, and hanging down to his belly.
1847 Le Fanu T. O'Brien 255 Dar to touch me,- and I'll let the light into your puddens.
? 3. a. ? Some kind of artificial light or firework.
b. A kind of fuse for exploding a mine. (Cf. F. boudin and saucisson in Littre.) Obs.
1527 in Sharp Cov. Myst. (1825) 185 Payd to hym dat bayre de podyngs for bothe nyghts..vj d.
1549 Ibid., Payd to de boye dat bere de podyngs j d.
1691 Treaty betw. Eng. and Denmark in Magens Insurances (1755) II. 634 Under Contraband Goods are understood..Cannons, Muskets,..Granadoes, Puddings, Torches, Carriages for Ordnance.
4. Naut. a. A wreath of plaited cordage placed round the mast and yards of a
ship as a support; a dolphin.
b. A pad to prevent damage to the gunwale of a boat; a fender.
c. The binding on rings, etc., to prevent the chafing of cables or hawsers. (So F. boudin.)
a1625 Nomencl. Navalis (Harl. MS. 2301) lf. 59 b, Puddings, are Roapes nailde rounde to the Yarde-armes..close to the ende..to saue the Robbins from galling a sunder vpon ye yards... Also the seruing of the Anchor with Roapes to saue the Clincke of the Cabill from galling against the Iron is called the Pudding of the Anchor.
1706 E. Ward Wooden World Diss. (1708) 80 Shew me the Gentleman, crys he, that can knot or splice, or make a Pudding as it should be.
1886 R. C. Leslie Sea-painter's Log 149 The bow of such boats is protected by a large fixed fender, or 'pudding' of cocoa-nut-fibre rope.
5. fig. a. Applied to a stout thick-set person.
1789 E. Butler Diary 7 Oct. in G. H. Bell Hamwood Papers (1930) 231 A great fat pudding boy brought some.
1858 Hawthorne Fr. and It. Note-Bks. II. 31 What could possibly have stirred up this pudding of a woman?
1903 [see non-significant a.].
1980 A. Cornelisen Flight from Torregreca xi. 267 She is a sallow pudding of a child with a broad flat face.
b. coarse slang. The penis.
1719 T. D'Urfey Wit and Mirth III. 73, I made a request to prepare again, That I might continue in Love with the strain Of his Pudding.
1961, 1970 [see pull v. 20 i]. 1972 [see pud n.3 2].
c. slang. A fotus; in phr. a pudding in the oven (and similar phrases), a child conceived but not yet born. Cf. bun n.2 1.
1937 Partridge Dict. Slang 665/1 With a bellyful of marrow-pudding,..pregnant.
1965 J. Porter Dover Two vi. 75 'None of us ever suspected that she'd got a pudding in the oven.' 'She was going to have a baby?' asked Dover.
1966 'L. Lane' ABZ of Scouse 112 She's got a pudden in ther uvving, she is pregnant.
II. 6. A preparation of food of a soft or moderately firm consistency, in which the ingredients, animal or vegetable, are either mingled in a farinaceous basis (chiefly of flour), or are enclosed in a farinaceous 'crust' (cf. dumpling), and cooked by boiling or steaming.
Preparations of batter, milk and eggs, rice, sago, tapioca, and other farinaceous substances, suitably seasoned, and cooked by baking, are now also called puddings.
The earliest use (connecting this with 1) apparently implied the boiling of the composition in a bag or cloth (pudding-bag or -cloth), as is still often done; but the term has been extended to similar preparations otherwise boiled or steamed, and finally to things baked, so that its meaning and application are now rather indefinite.
a. with a and pl., as an individual thing. Now usu. in British English, the sweet course following the main course of a meal, 'afters'.
1544 T. Phaer Regim. Lyfe (1545) 80 b, Take oyle of roses, crumes of bread, yolkes of egges, and cowes mylke, wyth a litle saffron, seeth them togyther a lytle as ye wolde make a pudding.
1589 Rider Bibl. Schol. 1162 A pudding made of milke, cheese, and herbs, moretum, herbosum moretum.
1692 Tryon Good House-w. ix. 75 In Puddens it is usual to mix Flower, Eggs, Milk, Raisins or Currants, and sometimes both Spice, Suet, the Fat or Marrow of Flesh, and several other things.
1732 Pope Ep. Bathurst 346 One solid dish his week-day meal affords, An added pudding solemniz'd the Lord's.
1736-7 Ld. Castledurrow Let. to Swift 17 Jan., Your puddings..are the best sweet thing I ever eat.
1747 H. Glasse Cookery vii. 70 In boiled Puddings, take great Care the Bag or Cloth be very clean... If you boil them in Wooden-bowls, or China-dishes, butter the Inside before you put in your Batter: And all baked Puddings, butter the Pan or Dish, before the Pudding is put in.
1755 Johnson, Pudding, a kind of food very variously compounded, but generally made of meal, milk, and eggs.
1851 Rep. Juries Gt. Exhibition (1852) 55 United States.-Maize-flour, commonly called..'corn-flour' in the U.S...is extensively used for puddings and other purposes in that country.
1909, etc. [see afters n. pl.].
1940 S. Spender Backward Son 12 At lunch there was fruit salad, his favourite pudding.
1954 Good Housek. Cookery Bk. (rev. ed.) ii. 284 In this section will be found the recipes for suet and sponge puddings, and for some miscellaneous baked puddings.
1968 New Society 22 Aug. 266/2 Another course of a meal is called 'sweet' by the non-U... The U word for the course is pudding.
1974 E. Ayrton Cookery of England x. 430 Our grandfathers, even our fathers, expected a 'pudding' at least once a day, sometimes twice.
b. Without a or pl., as name of the substance.
1670 Eachard Cont. Clergy 87 Mr. Clerk's Lives of famous men,..such as Mr. Carter of Norwich, that used to eat such abundance of pudden.
1685 S. Wesley Maggots, Tobacco Pipe, For that can best as you may quickly prove Settle the wit, as Pudding settles Love.
1716 Pope Let. to Earl Burlington, If you can dine upon a piece of beef, together with a slice of pudding.
a1721 Prior Merry Andrew 33 Mind neither good nor bad, nor right nor wrong, But eat your pudding, slave, and hold your tongue.
1876 G. Meredith Beauch. Career xviii, Our English pudding, a fortuitous concourse of all the sweets in the grocer's shop.
Mod. Pudding is usually eaten after meat.
c. With defining word, expressing the essential ingredient, as apple-, bread-, fish-, lemon-, marrow-, meat-, milk-, pease-, plum-, potato-, rice-, sago-, steak-, suet-pudding, etc. Also Christmas pudding (Christmas 4), Sussex pudding, Yorkshire pudding. (See also these words.)
1616 [see marrow n.1 5].
1711 [see plum pudding].
1726 Arbuthnot Diss. Dumpling 6 The many sorts of Pudding he made, such as Plain Pudding, Plumb Pudding, Marrow Pudding, Oatmeal Pudding, Carrot Pudding, Saucesage Pudding, Bread Pudding, Flower Pudding, Suet Pudding.
1747 H. Glasse Cookery vii. 68 Calf's-Foot Pudding.
Ibid. 697 Stake-Pudding... Let your Stakes be..Beef or Mutton.
1769 Mrs. Raffald Eng. Housekpr. (1778) 181 To make a Yorkshire Pudding to bake under Meat.
1825-9 Mrs. Sherwood Lady of Manor IV. xxiv. 142 Their having a tansy pudding at Easter.
1862 Mrs. H. Wood Mrs. Hallib. ii. iii, A delicious lemon pudding.
1883 Harper's Mag. Apr. 654/1 A Sussex pudding, or great boiled dumpling filled with meat instead of fruit.
d. Proverb. (See also proof n. 4.)
1682 N. O. Boileau's Lutrin iii. Argt. 23 The proof of th' Pudding's seen i' th' eating.
1790 Windham Speeches Parl. 4 Mar. (1812) I. 189 Let us..apply to the British Constitution a homely adage,..-that 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'.
1900 Atheneum 21 July 97/3 After all, the proof of a pudding is in the eating.
7. fig.
a. Material reward or advantage: esp. in allit. antithesis to praise. (Without a or pl.)
1728 Pope Dunc. i. 54 Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs, And solid pudding against empty praise.
1821 Byron Juan iii. lxxix, He turn'd, preferring pudding to no praise.
1843 Carlyle Past and Pr. i. iv, Your own degree of worth or talent, is it..measurable by the conquest of praise or pudding it has brought you to?
b. U.S. slang. Something easy to accomplish.
1887 G. W. Walling Recoll. N.Y. Chief of Police xix. 262 It was an 'inside' job from the start... In thieves' slang it was a 'pudding';..the vault, although apparently impregnable, was easy to enter, [etc.].
1942 Berrey and Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang P255/1 Something easy,..pudding.
1974 Guidelines to Volunteer Services (N.Y. State Dept. Correctional Services) 42 Puddin, light action, easy.
8. transf.
a. Anything of the consistency or appearance of a pudding (in sense 6).
1731 P. Shaw Three Ess. Artif. Philos. 61 Without the..danger of making what, in the Language of Distillers, is termed a Pudding.
1757 A. Cooper Distiller i. i. (1760) 5 Danger of coagulating the Malt, or what Distillers call, making a Pudding.
1902 Cornish Naturalist Thames 92 The soaking rains have made a pudding, even of the pasture.
b. spec. (In recovering oil from waste suds.)
1884 W. S. B. McLaren Spinning (ed. 2) 51 Tanks are prepared to receive the suds... The thicker portion at the bottom is..run into a filter-bed of sand and gravel, through which the..water gradually filters, leaving the solid and greasy matter behind. This is laid in cloths and called 'puddings', which are pressed in hydraulic or steam presses till all the oil is squeezed out.
c. slang. A pudding-shaped bomb.
1919 Atheneum 25 July 664/1 Pudding, i.e. our 60 lb. bomb.
9. slang. Poisoned or drugged liver, etc. used by burglars, dog-stealers, etc. to destroy dogs or render them insensible. (Cf. pudding v.1, quot. 1858.)
1887 Horsley Jottings fr. Jail i. 17 There was a great tyke lying in front of the door, so I pulled out a piece of pudding..and threw it to him.
1891 Daily News 29 Jan. 7/1 He was found in possession of a dog collar and lead, a muzzle, and a quantity of prepared liver known as 'pudding'.
? 10. = jack-pudding. Obs.
c1675 Villiers (Dk. Buckhm.) Sat. Follies Age Wks. (1752) 111 And play the pudding in a May-day farce.
a1680 Butler Rem. (1759) I. 163 No Pudding shall be suffer'd to be witty, Unless it be in order to raise Pity.
III. 11. attrib. and Comb.
a. Of a pudding or puddings, as pudding course, -eater, -eating, -maker, -manufactory, -race (race n.2 9); also pudding-like, -shaped adjs.
b. Used in the making or consumption of pudding, as pudding-book, -bowl, -cloth, -crock, -dish, -fork, -mould, -pan, -plate, rice, -spoon, -stick.
1865 (title) Massey and Son's Comprehensive *Pudding Book, containing above one thousand Recipes.
a1584 Tom Thumbe 89 in Hazl. E.P.P. II. 181 He sate vpon the *Pudding-Boule, the candle for to hold.
1895 Kipling 2nd Jungle Bk. (ed. Tauchn.) 177 Bylot's Island stands above the ice like a pudding-bowl wrong side up.
1845 E. Acton Mod. Cookery xii. 255 The bird..wrapped in a thin *pudding-cloth, closely tied at both ends.
1868 M. Jewry Warne's Model Cookery 482 A pudding-cloth must be kept very clean.
1971 Country Life 17 June 1537/2 He tried to do it with oddments of coloured knitting wools on a pudding cloth.
1948 'J. Tey' Franchise Affair iv. 40 The gentle monologue went on, all through the *pudding course.
1495 Will of Geffereys (Somerset Ho.), *Podding crokke.
1829 Longfellow in Life (1891) I. 163 The Devil, dressed like a collier, with smutty face and *pudding-dish hat.
1726 Arbuthnot Diss. Dumpling 23 Let not Englishmen therefore be asham'd of the Name of *Pudding-Eaters.
Ibid. 6 In the Esteem of this *Pudding-eating Monarch.
1896 Woman's Life 15 Aug. 368/1 If the *pudding-spoon and fork are grasped from beneath instead of from above, the awkward uplifting of the elbows will be avoided.
1914 Joyce Dubliners 255 Freddy Malins beat time with his pudding-fork.
1540 Palsgr. Acolastus L iij, The pulters, cokes, *puddyng makers.
1726 Arbuthnot Diss. Dumpling 5 This John Brand, or Jack Pudding,..his Fame had reached France, whose King would have given the World to have had our Jack for his Pudding-Maker.
1874 L. Carr Jud. Gwynne I. iv. 116 If not in the way of your *pudding manufactory.
1904 Daily Chron. 19 July 8/5 Lining a *pudding-mould with thin slices of bread and butter.
1662 R. Mathew Unl. Alch. P116. 190 In an old *pudding pan, or a frying-pan, keep them always stirring.
1844 Dickens Mart. Chuz. ix, The *pudding-plates had been washed in a little tub.
1787 Burns To a Haggis 2 Fair fa' your honest sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the *puddin-race!
1974 Times 10 Jan. 10/1 Long grain and short or round grain, often called '*pudding' rice.
1895 W. Robinson Eng. Flower Garden (ed. 4) v. 75 A great many delightful plants..in many cases are jammed into *pudding-shaped masses void of form or grace.
1976 S. Wales Echo 23 Nov., A pudding-shaped mound in Energlyn near Caerphilly.
1896 Pudding-spoon [see pudding fork above].
1944 A. Thirkell Headmistress iv. 73 Giving a final polish to the pudding spoons with a piece of washleather.
1973 J. Wainwright Touch of Malice 93 Harris..handled the gear-lever like a pudding-spoon.
17.. E. Smith Compl. Housew. (1750) 183 Mix it with a broad *puddingstick; not with your hands.
1852 Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin I. xviii. 298 Interrupting her meditations to give..a rap on the head to some of the young operators with the pudding-stick that lay by her side.
1878 B. F. Taylor Between Gates 109 You can get an idea of it by fancying a paddle or a pudding-stick turning into a fiddle.
c. Special Combs.:
? pudding-ale, cheap ale, probably 'from its being thick like pudding' (Skeat);
pudding-ball Austral. [ad. Aboriginal word], an edible marine fish resembling a mullet, perhaps the sea mullet, Mugil cephalus; pudding basin, a basin in which puddings are made; transf., applied to a round hat, helmet, or hair-style; also attrib.; pudding bree, broo, Sc., the water in which puddings (sense 1) have been boiled; pudding-cake: see quot.;
? pudding-cart, an offal or refuse cart (cf. sense 2);
pudding chain Naut. (see quot.);
pudding class = next;
pudding club: see club n. 14 c;
pudding-face, a large fat face;
hence pudding-faced a.;
pudding fender = sense 4 b;
? pudding-filler (from sense 2), one who lives to eat, a glutton; pudding-fish, = pudding-wife 2 (Hamilton Dict. Terms 1825);
? pudding-gut, the entrail or skin used in making puddings (sense 1); pudding-head, a stupid person;
hence pudding-headed a.; pudding-heart, soft-heart, coward;
? pudding-house, (a) the stomach or belly (vulgar);
(b) an offal house;
pudding-meat, the meat stuffing for a pudding (sense 1);
? pudding-pack, = pudding-tobacco below;
pudding-pipe, the pod of an Indian tree, Cassia fistula, hence called pudding-pipe tree;
? pudding-pit, ? a pit into which offal is thrown;
pudding-poke, the long-tailed tit, Aegithalos caudatus;
pudding-sleeve, a large bulging sleeve drawn in at the wrist or above;
also attrib.;
hence pudding-sleeved a.;
? pudding-tobacco, compressed tobacco, made in rolls resembling a pudding or sausage [cf. F. boudin de tabac];
pudding-turnip, a variety of turnip;
pudding way = pudding club above;
? pudding-wright, one who makes puddings. Also pudding-bag, -grass, -pie, etc.
1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. v. 220 Peny ale and *podyng ale she poured togideres For laboreres and for low folke.
1847 J. D. Lang Cooksland iv. 96 The species of fish that are commonest in the Bay [sc. Moreton Bay] are mullet, bream, puddinba (a native word corrupted by the colonists into *pudding-ball)... The puddinba is like a mullet in shape, but larger, and very fat; it is esteemed a great delicacy.
1896 Australasian 28 Aug. 407/4 'Pudding-ball' is the name for a fish.
1945 Baker Austral. Lang. xii. 214 Popular fish-names peculiar to the Australian include..puddingball, corrupted by the law of Hobson-Jobson from the aboriginal puddinba.
1861 Mrs. Beeton Bk. Househ. Managem. xxvi. 611 (caption) *Pudding-basin.
1909 Westm. Gaz. 3 June 8/3 A grey straw hat of the inverted pudding-basin type.
1925 Fraser and Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 231 Pudding basin, the British steel shrapnel helmet. (From its shape.)
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