Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Porridge |
PorridgeNoun1. Soft food made by boiling oatmeal or other meal or legumes in water or milk until thick. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "porridge" was first used: sometime around 1532. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Porridge Everything tastes of porridge. However we may deceive ourselves, whatever castles in the air we may construct, the fact of home life will always intrude. Sir Walter Scott tells us of an insane man who thought the asylum his castle, the servants his own menials, the inmates his guests. "Although," said he, "I am provided with a first-rate cook and proper assistants, and although my table is regularly furnished with every delicacy of the season, yet so depraved is my palate that everything I eat tastes of porridge." His palate was less vitiated than his imagination. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Slang in 1811 | PORRIDGE. Keep your breath to cool your porridge; i. e. held your tongue. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Porridge is a soft food made by boiling oats (normally crushed oats, occasionally oatmeal) or another meal in water or milk. Some other meals used for porridge include wheat, peasemeal, barley, or cornmeal. In many cultures it is eaten as a breakfast, often with the addition of sugar or cream. Some manufacturers of breakfast cereal sell "ready-made" versions.See also grits, mush, gruel. For the British TV comedy, see Porridge (TV).
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Porridge."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Porridge is a television sitcom (1974 - 1977), written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. It is set in the fictional "Slade Prison" in Cumberland (now Cumbria). In prison slang, 'porridge' means a prison sentence.The show stars Ronnie Barker as Norman Stanley Fletcher ("Fletch"), described by his sentencing judge as an 'habitual criminal', Richard Beckinsale as Lennie Godber, Fletch's surprisingly innocent cellmate, Fulton Mackay as Mr McKay, a tough warder, and Brian Wilde as Mr Barraclough, a timid warder. It featured a number of other prisoners, such as Blanco (David Jason), Samson and Delilah (a gay couple), Grouty (a gangster who unofficially runs the prison), etc.
It led to a TV sequel entitled Going Straight (1978) and a film version (1979). Richard Beckinsale died at the age of 31 shortly after completing the film.
The script allowed the prisoners to swear without offending viewers by using the word naff. It was used in place of another well-known four-letter word, in phrases such as "Naff off!". Ronnie Barker claims he invented the word but there is evidence that he may have borrowed the word from Polari or from Australian slang ("Nasty as fuck"). A genuine neologism was the word nerk, which was used in place of the more offensive word berk (Cockney rhyming slang, short for "Berkshire Hunt").
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Porridge (TV)."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Food | Alligator pear, apple; apple slump; artichoke; ashcake, griddlecake, pancake, flapjack; atole, avocado, banana, beche de mer, barbecue, beefsteak; beet root; blackberry, blancmange, bloater, bouilli, bouillon, breadfruit, chop suey; chowder, chupatty, clam, compote, damper, fish, frumenty, grapes, hasty pudding, ice cream, lettuce, mango, mangosteen, mince pie, oatmeal, oyster, pineapple, porridge, porterhouse steak, salmis, sauerkraut, sea slug, sturgeon ("Albany beef"), succotash, supawn, trepang, vanilla, waffle, walnut. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Porridge |
| English words defined with "porridge": burgoo ♦ Crowdy ♦ frumenty ♦ gruel ♦ hasty pudding ♦ oatmeal ♦ Podge, Polenta ♦ Quinoa ♦ rolled oats ♦ Skilligalee, skilly ♦ Wooden spoon. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "porridge": Bishop, Cardinal, Pope ♦ Keep your Breath to Cool your Porridge ♦ Nadab, Norna of the Fitful Head ♦ PORRIDGE ISLAND. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "porridge": Pottage. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Porridge" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. French (porridge), German (porridge), Italian (porridge). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Save your breath for cooling your porridge. (Snatch.; writing credit: Guy Ritchie) Soft and spiritless as porridge! A faerie's heart beats fierce and free (Legend; writing credit: William Hjortsberg) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Porridge (1974) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Music |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | 4-6 Months Start Feeding Your Baby Porridge And Fruits : Continue Breastfeeding. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | 6-9 Months Start Feeding Your Baby Soft, Mashed Foods From The Family Pot. : Continue Breastfeeding + Porridge + Fruits. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | 9-12 Months Your Baby Can Now Eat The Same Food As The Rest Of The Family : Continue Breastfeeding + Porridge + Fruits. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | Warming the porridge. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
William Shakespeare | He receives comfort like cold porridge. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Human Rights | Cote d'Ivoire | In September the prisoners from Man prison sent a petition of complaint to President Gbagbo criticizing the poor treatment, poor conditions, and the daily rations of corn porridge that allegedly caused diarrhea and led to the cholera outbreak, which resulted in 160 deaths during the year. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Porridge" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 93.73% of the time. "Porridge" is used about 271 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 93.73% | 254 | 18,599 |
| Noun (proper) | 5.9% | 16 | 87,710 |
| Noun (common) | 0.37% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 271 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "porridge": keep one's breath to cool one's porridge ♦ oatmeal porridge ♦ porridge made with water. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "porridge": porridge-bowls, porridge-grey, porridge-like. | |
Ending with "porridge": pease-porridge. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
porridge | 40 |
porridge recipe | 9 |
pea porridge | 6 |
porridge rice | 3 |
porridge recipe rice | 3 |
oat porridge | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "porridge"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | qull (dabby, drench, get wet, gruel, mash, saturate, soak, soppy, wet). (various references) | |
Arabic | حساء الشعير, عصيدة (gruel, mash, mush, puree, samp), ثريد. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | каша от овесена каша, овесена каша (gruel, oatmeal, oats, stirabout). (various references) | |
Chinese | 粥 (congee, gruel). (various references) | |
Czech | ovesná kaše (gruel, oatmeal, stirabout). (various references) | |
Farsi | فرنی , حریره , شوربا (Cullis). (various references) | |
Finnish | kaurapuuro (oatmeal porridge). (various references) | |
French | porridge (oatmeal porridge). (various references) | |
German | Haferbrei, Brei (goo, gruel, mash, mess, mush, pap, paste, pulp, puree, semi-solid food). (various references) | |
Greek | πόρριτζ (oatmeal porridge), χυλόσ (chyle, gruel, mush, pap, puree). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מקפא (gel, gruel, jelly, magma), "יס" (cereal, gruel, mess of pottage, mush, pap), זי" (broth, mess, pottage, stew). (various references) | |
Hungarian | zabkása (flummery, gruel, stirabout, stir-about). (various references) | |
Indonesian | bubur. (various references) | |
Italian | porridge. (various references) | |
Manx | broghan (gruel, skilly). (various references) | |
Maori | paareti. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | orridgepay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | papa de aveia. (various references) | |
Romanian | terci de ovãz, supã deasã de legume. (various references) | |
Russian | каша (kasha, mush, stirabout, stir-about). (various references) | |
Scottish | brochan (gruel). (various references) | |
Sepedi | bouawa. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | kaša (mash, mush, pap, pulp, squash). (various references) | |
Shona | bota. (various references) | |
Sotho | papa, motoho. (various references) | |
Spanish | mazamorra (maize), gachas de avena. (various references) | |
Swedish | gröt (mush, pap, poultice, rice pudding). (various references) | |
Tswana | motogo (soft porridge). (various references) | |
Turkish | yulaf lâpası (water gruel), hapsedilme (confinement, imprisonment, incarceration). (various references) | |
Turkmen | юьle (rice porridge). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | вівсянка (cereal, oatmeal), дурниця (absurdity, absurdness, applesauce, balderdash, ballyhoo, bosh, buncombe, froth, humbug, mush, nonsense, piffle, poppycock, rigmarole, rubbish, sappiness, shucks, slum, trash, tripe). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | cháo yến mạch hây khuyên lấy bản thân mình. (various references) | |
Welsh | uwd. (various references) | |
Wolof | fonde (a kind of porridge). (various references) | |
Xhosa | ipapa. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Greek | 700 BCE-300 CE | poltos. (various references) |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | porrum, pultes. (various references) |
| Old French | 900-1400 | poree. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "porridge": porridges. (additional references) | |
| |
"Porridge" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Dorridge, Ogridge, Orridge, Pieridae, Pipridae, pooridge, poridge, porradge, porrage, porridgy, porrige, porringe, prodge, Torrigay. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "porridge" (pronounced pô"ruj) |
| 4 | -ô" r u j | storage. |
| 3 | -r u j | acreage, cartridge, miscarriage, peerage. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "d-e-g-i-o-p-r-r" | |
-1 letter: grodier, podgier. | |
-2 letters: dopier, dorper, girder, gorier, griped, griper, groped, groper, period, ropier. | |
-3 letters: direr, dirge, dogie, doper, drier, geoid, gored, gride, gripe, grope, order, pedro, pirog, pored, pride, pried, prier, prior, redip, repro, rerig, rider, ridge, rigor, riped, riper, roger, roped, roper. | |
-4 letters: dire, doer, doge, dope, dore, dorp, dorr, dreg, drip, drop. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-e-g-i-o-p-r-r" | |
+1 letter: porridges. | |
+3 letters: preordering, reproducing. | |
+4 letters: deprograming, discographer, micrographed, misprogramed, preordaining, prerecording, prerogatived, proofreading, radiographed, videographer. | |
+5 letters: corresponding, deprogramming, discographers, hydrographies, misprogrammed, overproducing, overspreading, propagandizer, radiographies, videographers. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Familiar 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
