porridge: [16] Porridge is a 16th-century alteration of pottage [13]. This originally denoted a stew of vegetables and sometimes meat, boiled to submission, but it gradually came to be applied to a gruel, of varying consistency, made of cereals, pulses, etc, and it was the sort made from oatmeal that eventually took over the word porridge. Its transformation from pottage took place via an intermediate poddage (the t pronounced /d/ as in American English), and the change to r is mirrored in such forms as geraway and geroff for getaway and get off.
The same thing happened in the case of porringer ‘dish’ [16], which came from an earlier pottinger. Pottage itself was acquired from Old French potage, which etymologically meant simply ‘something from a pot’ (it was a derivative of pot ‘pot’). English reborrowed it in the 16th century as potage ‘soup’. => pot, potage, pottage
porridge (n.)
1530s, porage "soup of meat and vegetables," alteration of pottage, perhaps from influence of Middle English porray, porreie "leek broth," from Old French poree "leek soup," from Vulgar Latin *porrata, from Latin porrum "leek." Spelling with -idge attested from c. 1600. Association with oatmeal is 1640s, first in Scottish.
双语例句
1. Their room was bare of furniture and they lived off porridge.
他们家徒四壁，靠喝粥度日。
来自柯林斯例句
2. They lived frugally off a diet of porridge and lentils.
他们生活节俭,只吃燕麦粥和小扁豆.
来自《简明英汉词典》
3. He's doing porridge again, this time for armed robbery.
他又坐牢了, 这次是因为持械抢劫.
来自《简明英汉词典》
4. Don't scald your lips in another man's porridge.
