roast beef
Also roast-beef.
[roast ppl. a. Hence F. rosbif.]
a. Beef roasted for eating.
| a 1635 Randolph Hey for Honesty iv. i, My nose Smells the delicious odour of roast-beef. 1710 Tatler No. 148 ¶10, I smelled the agreeable Savour of Roast Beef. 1731 Fielding Grub St. Op. iii. ii, Oh, the roast beef of England, And old England's roast beef! 1806 A. Hunter Culina (ed. 3) 6 Long may it, and Roast Beef, be the pride and glory of this happy island. 1851 Thackeray Eng. Hum. v. (1853) 236 A hearty, plain-spoken man, loving his laugh, his friends, his glass, his roast-beef of Old England. |
b. attrib., as roast-beef-of-old-England-man, roast-beef stomach, roast beef sandwich, roast beef time; also roast beef coat = next; roast-beef dress (see quot. 1867); roast-beef plant, the fetid iris, so called because its crushed leaves emit an odour likened to that of roast-beef.
| 1712 Addison Spect. No. 517 ¶2 He had lost his Roast-Beef Stomach, not being able to touch a Sirloin. [1776 Foote Capuchin i, Wictuals! Lord help your roast-beef and plumb-pudding soul!] 1818 ‘A. Burton’ Adventures J. Newcome ii. 117 His ship-washed linen out he laid, And roast beef coat in smart parade. 1831 M. Edgeworth Let. 29 Mar. (1971) 507 Her husband is one of the thin dried old race of true hunter and shooter men and roast beef of old England-men. 1848 C. A. Johns Week at Lizard 320 Iris fœtidissima, roast-beef plant. 1867 Smyth Sailor's Wordbk., Roast-Beef Dress, full uniform; probably from its resemblance to that of the royal beef-eaters. 1874 L. Carr J. Gwynne I. iii, His smart cob duly carried him to the White House within five minutes of roast-beef time. 1967 ‘D. Shannon’ Chance to Kill (1968) xiii. 189, I even remember what she had... It was the hot roast⁓beef sandwich. 1971 D. Enefer Screaming Orchid xii. 103, I had stopped..for roast beef sandwiches and bitter beer. |