hardtack
Other forms: hardtacks
Hardtack is an old-fashioned type of bread or cracker that sailors used to bring with them during long voyages. The taste and texture of hardtack wasn't popular, but it lasted a long time without spoiling.
If you take a close look at the word hardtack, you'll have a clear sense of how sailors felt about having to eat it day after day. The hard part is accurate — it was so dry and tough that it was difficult to bite. Tack once meant "food," but in dialect it was specifically "bad food." Hardtack had many alternate names, including "soda crackers" and "sea biscuits," but also "dog biscuits" and "molar breakers."
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very hard unsalted biscuit or bread; a former ship's staplesynonyms: pilot biscuit, pilot bread, sea biscuit, ship biscuittype of:biscuitsmall round bread leavened with baking-powder or soda
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a mountain mahoganytype of:mahogany, mahogany treeany of various tropical timber trees of the family Meliaceae especially the genus Swietinia valued for their hard yellowish- to reddish-brown wood that is readily worked and takes a high polish
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Vocabulary lists containing hardtack
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