scuttlebutt

Tanımlar (İngilizce)

1. isim Originally (now chiefly historical), a cask with a hole cut into its top, used to provide drinking water on board a ship; now (by extension, informal), a drinking fountain on a modern ship.

   “[S]o they continue to fire as directed, until they are either sent down to the cock-pit themselves, or have a momentary respite from their exertions, when, choaked with smoke and gunpowder, they go aft to the scuttle-butt, to remove their parching thirst.”

2. isim Gossip, idle chatter; also, rumour.

   “His resolve not to worry about unfounded scuttlebutt lasted about two minutes.”

3. fiil To spread (information) by way of gossip or rumour.

   “The Pentagon rumor factory hasn't been very busy lately, but some reports are being scuttlebutted about that the U.S. military chiefs are being downgraded in the pecking order and that their military advice has been bypassed or ignored by the Carter Administration.”

4. fiil To chat idly or gossip; also, to spread rumours.

   “During the fighting for Manila, it was scuttle-butted among the troops that they must never put pin-up pictures on the walls of the Manila Hotel because Mrs. [Douglas] MacArthur owned fifty per cent of the property and Brigadier General Courtney Whitney, of MacArthur's staff, owned the other half.”