A substantial soup of clams or fish. Apparently from Fr. Chaudière. See Notes and Queries, 4 S. iv., v., vii. “Chowder” is the name of Tabitha’s dog in ‘Humphry Clinker.’
1762. My head sings and simmers like a pot of chowder.—Smollett, ‘Sir Launcelot Greaves,’ xvii. (N.E.D.)
1836. [The Mayor] is off to Long Branch, to enjoy otium cum dignitate, or in other parlance eat chowder and drink claret.—Phila. Public Ledger, Aug. 2.
1838. I was duly initiated into the mysteries and merits of “a chowder.” We had “clam chowder” and “fish chowder.”—E. C. Wines, ‘A Trip to Boston,’ p. 79.
1840. The chowder-builder and the poet must alike be born, each to his ‘art unteachable, untaught.’—‘Discursive Thoughts on Chowder,’ Knick. Mag., xvi. 26 (July). Also pp. 123, 452, same vol.
1840. All is fish that comes to his net, and goes to make up the grand chowder of his political reputation.—Arcturus, i. 11 (Dec.).
1846. Such glowing encomiums on pandowdy and pumpkin-pie! Such affectionate mention of clam-chowder, roast-veal, and baked-beans! no wonder the gathering is rapidly dispersed.—Yale Lit. Mag., xi. 235 (April).
1848. We hate chowder-parties, we do.—Yale Lit. Mag., xvi. 380 (July).
1853. In the Olympia (W.T.) Columbian, Aug. 6, notice is taken of a “chowder-party” on Puget Sound, in the sloop “Sarah Stone.”
1855. I profess to be a judge of chowders, sherries, and wines generally.—D. G. Mitchell, ‘Fudge Doings,’ i. 29.
1855.
| So the half of the band that still survives, | |
| Comes up, with long moustaches and knives, | |
| Determined to mince the Captain to chowder, | |
| So soon as it ’s known he is out of powder. | |
F. S. Cozzens, ‘Captain Davis: A Californian Ballad,’ Knickerbocker Mag., xlv. 337 (April). |
1874. Keeping beach hotels on a larger or smaller scale, with the collateral occupation of “running a chowder mill,” as the phrase goes here.—C. D. Shanley, ‘Coney Island,’ Atlantic Monthly, xxxiv. p. 309/2 (Sept.).
1888. He took her into a saloon, ordered a chowder for her, and left her.—Galveston News, n.d. (Farmer).
