porridge

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A dish made of grain or legumes, milk or water, heated and stirred until thick and typically eaten for breakfast.

   Eat your porridge while it's hot!

2. 2
   noun

   A prison sentence.

   Just do your porridge and keep your head down.

3. 3
   noun

   soft food made by boiling oatmeal or other meal or legumes in water or milk until thick

4. 4
   noun

   A type of thick soup or stew, especially thickened with barley.

Simplified etymology

Porridge is a 16th-century alteration of pottage, which came from Old French potage, “something put in a pot.” It initially meant a soup thickened with barley; the familiar oatmeal dish is recorded from the 1640s.

Variant of pottage (“thick soup or stew”), influenced by porray (“stew of leeks”). The "prison sentence" sense comes from the British tradition of serving prisoners porridge for breakfast.

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary