Word.ws English Dictionary

skillygalee

skillygalee noun: a type of gruel made from oatmeal, oft-served historically in poorhouses, sailors' ships, etc.

Noun

skillygalee (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) A type of gruel made from oatmeal, oft-served historically in poorhouses, sailors' ships, etc.
    • Breakfast was served at 8am and sometimes consisted of skillygalee, a sort of oatmeal gruel prepared in fatty water and which by the time of Trafalgar included butter and sugar.2005, Gregory Fremont-Barnes, Steve Noon, Nelson's Sailors, Osprey Publishing, page 24
  2. (obsolete) A thin broth generally prepared by soaking hardtack in water, and frying with pork fat/lard.
    • Skillygalee was born of left-over pork grease and crackers too tough to bite and chew.2004, Brian Leehan, Pale Horse at Plum Run: The First Minnesota at Gettysburg, Minnesota Historical Society Press, page 200

Forms of skillygalee

alternative formskilligalee
alternative formskilligolee

Origin of skillygalee

Unknown and much-speculated (compare lobscouse and other fancifully-named hardy foods), but possibly Irish in root.

Questions about skillygalee

What does skillygalee mean?
Skillygalee means a type of gruel made from oatmeal, oft-served historically in poorhouses, sailors' ships, etc.
What part of speech is skillygalee?
Skillygalee is a noun.

Words near skillygalee in the dictionary

  1. skillshare
  2. skillshares
  3. skillsome
  4. skillwise
  5. skilly
  6. skillygalee
  7. skillz
  8. skils
  9. Skilsaw
  10. Skilsaws
  11. skilsies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: skillygalee (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “skillygalee.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/skillygalee. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.