Also 7–8 soupe, soop. [ad. F. soupe (OF. also souppe, sope) sop, broth, = Prov., Sp., Pg. sopa (It. zuppa): see SOP sb.1 Hence also WFlem. soepe, soupe, Du. soep. The relationship of other Teut. forms is less clear: cf. MHG. (G. and Da.) suppe with OHG. sopha, soffa (MHG. sophe), MLG. sope, soppe (LG. soppe; Sw. and Norw. soppa), MDu. sop, zop (Du. and Fris. sop).]
1. A liquid food prepared by boiling, usually consisting of an extract of meat with other ingredients and seasoning.
Freq. with defining words, as fish, giblet, gravy, hare, ox-tail, pea, turtle soup; clear, thick soup; etc.
α. 1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I. li. Then made they ready store of Carbonadoes … and good fat soupes or brewis with sippets.
1699. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Soupe, Broth, Porridge.
1716. Gay, Trivia, III. 204. And in the Soupe the slimy Snail is drown’d.
β. 1687. Miége, Gt. Fr. Dict., I. Soupe,… pottage, or soop.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 84/2. Soops, a kind of sweet pleasant Broth, made rich with Fruit and Spices.
1691. Satyr agst. French, 16.
| But ah! that Custom’s vanish’d, and supply’d | |
| With Dishes which few Mankind knew beside; | |
| With Soops and Fricasies, Ragou’s, Pottage, | |
| Which, like to Spurs, do Nature urge to Rage. |
1730. Swift, Panegyrick on Dean, Wks. 1755, IV. I. 142. Instead of wholsome bread and cheese, To dress their soops and fricassees.
1760–72. trans. Juan & Ulloa’s Voy. (ed. 3), I. 78. To make it an ingredient in their soop.
γ. 1677. Miége, Fr. Dict., II. Soup, or French pottage.
1729. Swift, Direct. Serv. (1745), 20. Let the Cook daub the Back of his new Livery; or when he is going up with a Dish of Soup, let her follow him softly with a Ladle-full.
1758. Johnson, Idler, No. 19, ¶ 8. He … has only time to taste the soup.
1807. Med. Jrnl., XVII. 220. The patient … indicated a desire for a little soup, of which he got over a few spoonfuls.
1837. P. Keith, Bot. Lex., 181. The Truffle is much esteemed for the rich and delicate flavour which it imparts to soups and sauces.
1859. Habits of Gd. Society, xi. 310. A light soup is better than a thick one, which clogs the appetite.
fig. 1859. Lever, Davenport Dunn, xlvi. Cranberry must have got his soup pretty hot, for he has come abroad.
2. colloq. or slang. a. Briefs for prosecutions given to members of the Bar at Quarter Sessions or other courts; the fees attaching to such briefs. Also in pl.
1856. Law Times, XXVII. 122. But will soup so ladled out, to use the well-known phrase, support a barrister in the criminal courts?
1889. B. C. Robinson, Bench & Bar, 160, note. The brief consisted merely of the depositions, and the important honorarium attached to it was called ‘soup.’
1891. Pall Mall Gaz., 17 Sept., 5/2. A crowd of unemployed barristers in the robing-room, waiting to secure these [briefs], which are known in Bar slang as ‘soups.’
attrib. 1894. Daily Tel., 23 Nov., 5/4. The great ‘soup’ question is again agitating the minds of barristers at the Old Bailey.
b. In the soup, in a difficulty. U.S.
1889. Lisbon (Dakota) Star, 26 April, 4/2. After collecting a good deal of money, the scoundrels suddenly left town, leaving many persons in the soup.
1898. Peggy Webling, in Pall Mall Mag., Nov., 420. Of course he knows we’re in the soup—beastly ill luck!
c. In miscellaneous uses: (see quots.).
1891. Cent. Dict., Soup, a kind of picnic in which a great pot of soup is the principal feature.
1901. Scotsman, 6 Nov., 10/6. Then the ‘soup’ [= fog] begins to get thick, Particles of smoke … remain suspended.
1905. Strand Mag., XXX. 702/1. That’s got enough soup [= nitro-glycerine] in it to blow the whole court-house into the sky.
1913. Webster’s Dict., Soup, any material injected into a horse with a view to changing its speed or temperament.
3. attrib., chiefly with names of utensils, as soup-bowl, -dish, -kettle, -ladle, etc.
1858. T. W. Atkinson, Oriental & West. Siberia, iii. 41. Take [my] broth with my two friends from the same *soup-bowl I could not.
1755. Gentl. Mag., XXV. 416. Vessels like *soup-dishes, supported on three feet.
1852. Thackeray, Esmond, II. xii. The poor devils had even fled without their *soup-kettles.
1716. Lond. Gaz., No. 5437/4. 18 Forks, a *Soop-Ladle.
1847. Emerson, Repr. Men, Plato, Wks. (Bohn), I. 295. Drawing all his illustrations … from pitchers and soup-ladles.
1827. Faraday, Chem. Manip., xii. (1842), 276. The litmus solution should be poured into a dish or *soup-plate.
1900. Daily News, 2 June, 6/7. Some thirty years ago, when soup-plate bonnets and round-brimmed hats were in vogue.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. VII. xi. An enormous tricolor; large as a *soup-platter, or sun-flower.
1866. Lady St.-Clair-Erskine, Dainty Dishes (ed. 2), 5. Put into a *soup-pot twelve lbs. of the sticking piece of beef from a young ox.
1705. Lond. Gaz., No. 4163/3. 5 *Soop Spoons.
1840. T. A. Trollope, Summer in Brittany, I. 298. An immense *soup-tureen full of boiled milk.
b. In combination with other sbs., as soup-and-blanket, soup-and-bully, soup-and-patty.
1829. Syd. Smith, Lett., in Lady Holland, Memoir (1855), II. 299. He had not his usual soup-and-pattie look.
1862. Dickens, Somebody’s Luggage, 26. She’d have no more chance again the ice, than a chancy cup again a soup-and-bully tin.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 26 Sept., 8/1. Making ground with his electors through the medium of the ‘soup and blanket brigade.’
4. Special combs., as soup-house, soup-kitchen, an establishment for preparing soup and supplying it to the poor or unemployed, either free or at a very low charge; soup-meat, meat used for making soup; soup-shop, (a) a shop where soup is distributed free; (b) a house where burglars dispose of silver and gold plate; soup-stock, stock used in making soup; soup-ticket, a ticket given to poor people enabling them to receive soup from a soup-kitchen.
1861. Clington, Frank O’Donnell, 196. These various sums … were spent … in building *Soup-houses, and erecting boilers.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, II. 259/1. The National Philanthropic Association, with its eleemosynary *soup-kitchens, &c.
1841. Thackeray, Gt. Hoggarty Diam., ix. Tell her on no account to pay more than … 43/4d. for *soup-meat.
1817. Cobbett, Pol. Reg., XXXII. 83. Reduced to such a state as to be fed at *Soup Shops by Subscription!
1854. London Jrnl., XIX. 322. By the term soup-shops, the speaker meant those convenient houses where burglars and thieves dispose of any silver or gold plate which may fall into their hands. In such establishments the melting-pots are always kept ready.
1861. Dickens, Gt. Expect., xxxiii. The air of this chamber, in its strong combination of stable with *soup-stock.
1841. Marryat, Poacher, xii. They look like *soup-tickets.
1870. Lowell, Among My Books, Ser. I. (1873), 300. This soup-ticket to a ladleful of fame.
Soup, obs. or dial. variant of SUP sb.
