Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Hence A British ship on which the lime-juice law is carried out.
- noun In Australia, a new-comer; one who has made the voyage on a lime-juicer; a greenhorn; a ‘new chum.’
- noun A British sailor: so called because he is obliged by law to use lime-juice at sea as an antiscorbutic.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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And we were near him, on the poop, when he drove by an east-bound lime-juicer, hove-to under upper-topsails.
CHAPTER XL 2010
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He had sailed always on French merchant vessels, with the one exception of a voyage on a "lime-juicer."
Confession 2010
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At noon we picked up a ship ahead, a lime-juicer, travelling in the same direction, under lower-topsails and one upper-topsail.
CHAPTER XL 2010
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"I saw it done when I was second mate on a lime-juicer," Captain Ward spoke up.
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"Yes, she's a lime-juicer," he remarked, and something like a sigh escaped him.
The Moving Picture Girls at Sea or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real Laura Lee Hope
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On the Lord Summerville was a mad Pennsylvania boy who had, like myself, gone to sea for the first time ... but he had had no uncle to beat timidity into him ... and he had dared ship as able seaman on the big sky-sailed lime-juicer, and had gloriously acquitted himself.
Tramping on Life Kemp, Harry, 1883-1960 1922
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On the _Lord Summerville_ was a mad Pennsylvania boy who had, like myself, gone to sea for the first time ... but he had had no uncle to beat timidity into him ... and he had dared ship as able seaman on the big sky-sailed lime-juicer, and had gloriously acquitted himself.
Tramping on Life An Autobiographical Narrative Harry Kemp 1921
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At noon we picked up a ship ahead, a lime-juicer, travelling in the same direction, under lower-topsails and one upper-topsail.
Chapter 40 1914
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"I saw it done when I was second mate on a lime-juicer," Captain Ward spoke up.
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He had sailed always on French merchant vessels, with the one exception of a voyage on a "lime-juicer."
Confession 1907
reesetee commented on the word lime-juicer
A "pejorative term applied in the mid-19th cent. by Americans and Australians to British sailors who had for the past half century been issued lime juice as a preventive of scurvy. By the early-20th cent. the term had been shortened to Limey, and by the end of WWI the shortened form was being applied, without prejudice, to all Englishmen, whether sailor or not. (Nevertheless, the general nickname must have been about as easy to take, for the average Englishman, as "Yank" was for the average Southern American.)" -- Food: A Dictionary of Literal and Nonliteral Terms, 2000.
February 22, 2009
mollusque commented on the word lime-juicer
Also applied to British ships.
February 22, 2009
reesetee commented on the word lime-juicer
Yes, I'd forgotten to add that. Thanks.
February 22, 2009
chained_bear commented on the word lime-juicer
I can attest to that "application to all English people" thing, though in my experience 1) it was applied more frequently to men rather than women, and 2) the Australians I knew were positively gleeful in applying it especially to those Brits who took offense.
I didn't know it could be a ship though.
February 24, 2009