From "The Wrecj of the Whaleship Essex" : "........a sudden squall of wind struck the ship.....
and knocked her completely on her beam ends, stove one of our boats,and threw down
the cambouse

I could not find this word in any dictionary. I found the word in several sites. One mentioned
Lewis and Clark having a blacksmith cut up a cambouse into four inch squares of metal
which they traded to the Indians for maize to eat. Another site showed a pictrue of a guy
in a sort of cramped kitchen with pots and pans on what may have been a stove, captioned
"Zort dans sa cambouse". I could not find "cambouse" in any French dictionary.

Then I had a hunch, and looked up etymology of "caboose". Here's what I found:
caboose - 1747, from M.Du. kambuis "ship's galley," from
Low Ger. kabhuse "wooden cabin on ship's deck."
Railroading sense is 1861.

So am I a clever boy, and does the "cambouse" that was knocked down on the Essex by
the sudden squall mean the ship's galley ?

See if any of you can find "cambouse" in a dictionary.

Well, Atomica told me that surely I meant cam or bouse. Here's what it has for bouse:
bouse also bowse (bouz) .

v. Nautical., boused also bowsed., bous·ing bows·ing., bous·es bows·es.

v.tr.
To pull or hoist with a tackle.

v.intr.
To hoist.

[Origin unknown.]

I tried Google, and the couple of listings in French made me try a French dictionary; I'm afraid the on-line ones that I can find are not very comprehensive. I did find, however, cambuse: a) (Shipping) storeroom
(b) (Slang) pad; quelle ~! what a dump!, what a (complete) dive!

I also found a link to a picture of someone cooking, titled (in French) 'Zort in his cambouse'.
http://groups.msn.com/weekendscoliens/wequimousse1.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=3265

Not a great deal of help, I'm afraid. I hope the Word Master responds to the challenge. :-)

from W3:

caboose Main Entry: ca·boose
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Etymology: probably from Dutch kabuis, kombuis, from Middle Low German kabuse
1 also camboose \kamb-\ a : a deckhouse where cooking is done : a ship's galley b : an open-air cooking oven
2 dialect : HUT
3 : a freight-train car usually attached to the rear of a train mainly for the use of trainmen in the performance of their duties although sometimes used to transport passengers, especially livestock caretakers

And if you thought "cambouse" was a dilly, try this one. The site had quite a few typos, but I
can't make head or tail of this one:


1.Charles W. Morgan, Mystic Seaport, Mystic, Connecticut, CT, Sail ... - ... into the blubber
room. Amidships is the mainmast, with a fife rail encircling the mast and bilge pumpsenditalid.
Aft of the mainmast ...
http://www.kelseypub.com/ct-guide/museums/chmorgan.shtml

Here's another improbable word from "The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex". I'm baffled.
"The night was spissy darkness itself." Nothing pertinent on Internet.

spissy

Wow, Dr. Bill! A real toughy! It's roots seem to be Germanic, spiss, Norwegian to be exact...it seems to have something to do with football in Norwegian. But the only English translation I can find in any Norwegian-English dictionary is jag. Put spiss in the search and you get plenty Norwegian hits.

There's also a spis in Swedish meaning fireplace.

so jag>jagged darkness? hmmm...dunno

fireplace>smokey>foggy darkness?

Here's a url to a Norwegian sports page with spiss used in the headline:

http://www.dagbladet.no/sport/2002/05/14/330866.html

(think it's gonna take someone with a higher speed connection than mine to track this one down)

<sigh>

spissy, adj. [Obs. rare.]

[f. L. spiss-us see SPISS a. (thick, dense, compact, close)]

dense, compact

1570 LEVINS Manip. 108 Spissy, massy, spissus. 1637 N. WHITING Albino & Bellama, Vind. Poesy H7 The spissye aire..Turnes into sea, earth's made a thickned water. 1683 PETTUS Fleta Min. I. (1686) 101 Sometimes with the digg'd Gold..there breaks a small grey spissy Oar.