scoff n.
food.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Swell’s Night Guide 51: It vas hout-and-hout good scoff, and no flies. | |
| What I Heard, Saw, and Did 11: On being asked [...] whether I was going to have any scauf* [...] (*Anything to eat). | |
 | Southern Africa 269: He promises them plenty of cattle and cows, meal, milk and scoff (food). | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Anaconda Standard (MT) 15 Dec. 10/1: He didn’t need to say that he wanted the ‘price of er scoff.’ He looked so hungry. | |
| Tramping with Tramps 232: Them fires [...] is where you cook your scoff [food]. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | letter in Africanderisms (1913) 446: Food with the colonials was always skoff. | |
| Burgher Quixote 71: ‘Niko mena skoff,’ which is kitchen Kafir for ‘Give me food’. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Truth (Sydney) 20 Nov. 3/6: Just to please the local trader / They leaves out the Chow to buy / Of his scoff. | |
| Leaven 202: Skoff (food), unlimited skoff, with sheep meat, bullock meat, every day. | |
| Secret Service in S. Afr. 76: Say you are guilty and get off with a month in tronk. It’s not bad in our tronk. No hard work, plenty of skoff. | |
| Africanderisms 446: Skoff In Natal this word is used of food itself. | |
| Day Book (Chicago) 1 Feb. 30/2: I sure do want to roam again / [...] / An’ tap some farmer’s home again, / Fer scoff dat’s fit to eat. | |
| Morn. Tulsa Dly World (OK) 13 June 19/3: Scoffings — Something to eat. | |
| Bound East for Cardiff (1923) 8: It’s hard enough [...] to be stomachin’ the skoff on this rusty lime-juicer. | |
| Gay-cat 305: Scoff—food; nourishment. | |
| Keys to Crookdom 416: Scoffings – food. | |
| (con. WWI) Soldier and Sailor Words 260: Skoff: Food. | |
| ‘Sign of the Snake’ Action Stories June 🌐 Bill had his scoffings from a panikin on the floor. | |
| Pal Joey 92: They have used up their mocassins for scoff. | |
| Really the Blues 291: The big bands are all the go and can provide them with their scoff. | |
| Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 90: Of course, you are used to having skoff in only the best hotels. | |
| Jungle Chase (1957) 9: Scoff? Do you want scoff? | |
| Look Long Upon a Monkey 66: That scoff ready yet, china? | |
| letter 10 Mar. in Leader (2000) 620: Their place is in an Old Kent Road cabmen’s shelter, taking scoff and char. | |
| Start in Life (1979) 104: ‘You’re getting a bit too bloody familiar as well,’ I snapped, paying out the best part of a quid on his monumental scoff. | |
| After Hours 183: I can’t enjoy a good scoff with a whole lot of fancy people around. | |
| Drylongso 231: I ain’t never took nothing, neither pussy nor wine nor scoff! | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | ‘A Smart Cunt’ in Acid House 261: It is a good scoff [...] stodgy food. | |
| Guardian Weekend 10 July 3: Having sex or eating one’s favourite scoff. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 159/2: scoff n. prison food, prison meals. | |
| Guardian 6 July 24/1: Now you can get delicious scoff: seafood in garlic. |
In derivatives
deprived of food, starving.
| Hiparama of the Classics 7: The Lion went zoom – snapped it up and swooped the scene and there stood the poor Indians scoffless. |
In compounds
(US black) a table.
| Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 27 Apr. 7/7: Hold his defenders under the scoff-board and speil lightly. |
(US tramp) money for food collected among a group of tramps when they have been unable to beg successfully.
| Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 165: Scoff Jack.–Money for food; usually a collection taken by a bunch of tramps and sent to town by one or more of their number to acquire food [...] especially when it has been impossible to beg or pilfer food. | |
| World to Win 58: Who did you depend on for your scoff jack? | |
| World’s Toughest Prison 816: scoff jack – Money for food. |
(US black) a restaurant, a café.
| Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 8 Feb. 7/1: The law picked up on him stached in a scoff [...] joint and snatched him back to Bean Town. |
(US black) a restaurant, a café.
| Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 27 Apr. 7/7: Whe you fall into a scoff pad and you are beat for a rough or so, play the high-speiler. |
(US) a restaurant, a café.
| ‘Ten Carats of Lead’ in Black Mask Stories (2010) 229/1: Hansard jerked his head toward the Coffee Shop. ‘Parked in front of the scoff-shop down there.’. |
In phrases
to eat.
| Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 19: A lotta grays and some ungroovy spooks, for that matter, are going to get conked up good before everybody sits down and cops a scoff from the same oak spread. [Ibid.] 78: ‘Knock a scoff,’ he says. He means, eat a meal. |