Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small room adjoining a kitchen, in which dishwashing and other kitchen chores are done.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A place where dishes, kettles, and other kitchen utensils are kept and washed, and where the rough or slop work of a kitchen is done; a back kitchen.
  • noun Slops; garbage; offal.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A place where dishes, kettles, and culinary utensils, are cleaned and kept; also, a room attached to the kitchen, where the coarse work is done; a back kitchen.
  • noun obsolete Hence, refuse; filth; offal.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun formerly A small room, next to a kitchen, where washing up and other domestic chores are done.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a small room (in large old British houses) next to the kitchen; where kitchen utensils are cleaned and kept and other rough household jobs are done

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French escuelerie, from escuelier, keeper of dishes, from escuele, dish, from Vulgar Latin *scūtella, alteration (influenced by scūtum, shield) of Latin scutella, salver, diminutive of scutra, platter.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English, but probably influenced by Old Norse skola ("to wash") (> Danish skylle, Icelandic skyla).

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Examples

  • In fact she dragged him into what she called her scullery (do they still exist?) and proceeded to scrub behind his ear with said scullery brush.

    British Blogs 2009

  • Does he call our scullery-maids and stable-boys "representative American middle class?"

    The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast, Volume 10 1905

  • I like worthless, as the pinche, what the English called the scullery maid, was quite often a retarded girl (or sometimes boy) that did the lowest, dirtiest sorts of jobs in the kitchen and was often referred to (in English) as that worthless girl or boy.

    Flowers in the Desert 2010

  • I like worthless, as the pinche, what the English called the scullery maid, was quite often a retarded girl (or sometimes boy) that did the lowest, dirtiest sorts of jobs in the kitchen and was often referred to (in English) as that worthless girl or boy.

    Flowers in the Desert 2010

  • I like worthless, as the pinche, what the English called the scullery maid, was quite often a retarded girl (or sometimes boy) that did the lowest, dirtiest sorts of jobs in the kitchen and was often referred to (in English) as that worthless girl or boy.

    Flowers in the Desert 2010

  • I like worthless, as the pinche, what the English called the scullery maid, was quite often a retarded girl (or sometimes boy) that did the lowest, dirtiest sorts of jobs in the kitchen and was often referred to (in English) as that worthless girl or boy.

    Flowers in the Desert 2010

  • I like worthless, as the pinche, what the English called the scullery maid, was quite often a retarded girl (or sometimes boy) that did the lowest, dirtiest sorts of jobs in the kitchen and was often referred to (in English) as that worthless girl or boy.

    Flowers in the Desert 2010

  • I like worthless, as the pinche, what the English called the scullery maid, was quite often a retarded girl (or sometimes boy) that did the lowest, dirtiest sorts of jobs in the kitchen and was often referred to (in English) as that worthless girl or boy.

    Flowers in the Desert 2010

  • I like worthless, as the pinche, what the English called the scullery maid, was quite often a retarded girl (or sometimes boy) that did the lowest, dirtiest sorts of jobs in the kitchen and was often referred to (in English) as that worthless girl or boy.

    Flowers in the Desert 2010

  • I like worthless, as the pinche, what the English called the scullery maid, was quite often a retarded girl (or sometimes boy) that did the lowest, dirtiest sorts of jobs in the kitchen and was often referred to (in English) as that worthless girl or boy.

    Flowers in the Desert 2010

Comments

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  • "Kitchens expanded, their different offices arranged around a courtyard into separate larders, storerooms, cellars, butteries (for the wine and ale in butts), pantries (for bread) and sculleries (from escuelier, or 'keeper of dishes'). Passageways now linked the main hall to the kitchen and its departments, with serving or surveying places like those at Durham Castle, Knole, Eltham and Hampton Court where the steward would pass his eye over the food before it was presented."

    --Kate Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007), 64

    January 8, 2017