kraut
(kraʊt)
[a. G. kraut herb, vegetable, cabbage.]
1. = sauerkraut, sourcrout. Also attrib. and Comb.
| [1845 Punch IX. 94/1 Happy midst his native kraut [sc. cabbage] My princely Albert wanders.] 1855 Geo. Eliot in Fraser's Mag. June 311/1 Kraut and wurst may be called the solid prose of Thuringian diet. 1895 Montgomery Ward Catal. 574/1 Kraut Forks..Combined Clothes Pounder and Kraut Stamper. Ibid. 576/2 Kraut Cutters, 8 × 26 inches. 3 cast steel knives. 1937 D. Runyon in Collier's 16 Jan. 47/2 Nicely-Nicely now observes that the very choicest spareribs are on Jake's plate, and also the most kraut. 1950 Amer. Speech XXV. 315/1 The recipe for krautfurters..under the title ‘Kraut and Frankfurters Team in Delightful Casserole Dishes’. 1961 John o' London's 13 July 88/3 Such words as..turkeyfurter and krautfurter: the last-named being made from sauerkraut. |
2. (Often with capital initial.) A German, esp. a German soldier. Also attrib. and Comb. Derogatory.
| 1918 G. E. Griffin Ballads of Regiment 34 But he always loved a soldier, be he..‘Krout’ or ‘Mick’. 1919 C. B. Hoyt Heroes of Argonne 41 The Frogs and Krauts got it fixed up between 'em. 1926 Sat. Even. Post 12 June 148/3 ‘Wait a while, fellers,’ he said. ‘The krauts are sockin' the crossroads.’ 1929 W. T. Scanlon God have Mercy on Us! 4 What gives me a pain in the neck is all the time we wasted up at Verdun in the old trenches when we might have been killing Krautheads. 1936 Our Army Feb. 14 We and the kraut-eaters were mixing it up to make the world safe for bigger and better wars. 1938 Johnson & Pratt Lost Battalion 17 There were ‘kraut’ machine guns barking at them in the dark. 1945 Daily Herald 8 May 4/4 The men just said things like, ‘Well, the Krauts are done for.’ 1946 J. M. Scott Other Side of Moon ii. 32 It is the only building left standing in the village. The Krauts blew up the rest. Ibid. v. 86 The Kraut will soon have to fall back. 1954 W. Faulkner Fable 376 He's got to be killed from in front, by a Kraut bullet—see? 1957 M. K. Joseph I'll soldier no More (1958) xiii. 291 I'll fix you, you kraut bastard. 1962 R. Cook Crust on its Uppers i. 24 We were doing some biz near Munich..back to this day in krautland. 1966 T. Pynchon Crying of Lot 49 i. 15 Maybe..he should have been in a war, Japs in trees, Krauts in Tiger tanks. 1971 J. Osborne West of Suez i. 27 An odd Kraut or two, bellowing at their Fraus. 1974 New Society 21 Feb. 435/2 The Hitler stuff, together with the usual illustrations of inflated multimillion mark notes..looks more like what is inelegantly called ‘Kraut-bashing’. 1974 L. Deighton Spy Story xviii. 195 ‘That goddamn Kraut sub,’ said the Conning Officer. |