Definitions

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

  • noun A servant employed to do menial tasks in a kitchen.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A servant who cleans pots and kettles, and does other menial service in the kitchen or scullery.
  • noun A low, disreputable, mean fellow.

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

  • noun (Bot.) A scallion.
  • noun A servant who cleans pots and kettles, and does other menial services in the kitchen.

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

  • noun Servant of lower class.

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

  • noun a kitchen servant employed to do menial tasks (especially washing)

Etymologies

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

[Middle English sculyon, probably from Old French escouvillon, dishcloth, diminutive of escouve, broom, from Latin scōpa, branches, broom.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word scullion.

Examples

  • March 1789 the Times reported, in brief, oblique installments, that a scullion from the royal kitchens had been caught in flagrante delicto with

    'Manlius to Peter Pindar':Satire, Patriotism, and Masculinity in the 1790s 2006

  • Agia smiled at that, but I called the scullion again and gave her an orichalk to bring a folding screen.

    The Shadow of the Torturer Wolfe, Gene 1980

  • A scullion is a grasshopper gymnasium haycock hedgehog servant 80 81

    Stanford Achievement Test, Ed. 1922 Advanced Examination, Form A, for Grades 4-8 Lewis M. Terman

  • Strange to say, this scullion was able to write, for a letter is extant from him to Sir Konrad, engaging to open the window immediately above the steep precipice, which on that side was deemed a sufficient protection to the castle, and to fasten a rope ladder by which to ascend the crags.

    A Book of Golden Deeds 1864

  • The scullion brought the word in the night, and it was known that next day the berries would come in.

    A CURIOUS FRAGMENT 2010

  • I had never done any hard manual labour, or scullion labour, in my life.

    Chapter 4 2010

  • Warden, the young wife of John Van Warden, clad in rags, with marred and scarred and toil-calloused hands, bending over the campfire and doing scullion work-she, Vesta, who had been born to the purple to greatest baronage of wealth the world has ever known.

    Page 4 2010

  • Good for little else than dish-washing and scullion work.

    Chapter 3 2010

  • A cook slumped in a chair, with his fingers caught in the collar of the scullion who lay at his feet.

    BEAUTY SLEEPING • by C.L. Holland 2009

  • All this was learned from the gossip of a palace scullion, who slept each night in the slave pen.

    A CURIOUS FRAGMENT 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • also, a low contemptible person (archaic)

    August 23, 2008

  • "Away you scullion! you rampallion! you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.

    Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II, i. ii. Line 67.

    September 24, 2009