syllabub

UK /ˈsɪ.lə.bʌb/ US /ˈsɪ.ləˌbʌb/
noun 3

Definitions

noun

1

A drink dating back to the 16th century consisting primarily of milk curdled with an alcoholic beverage or some acid such as lemon juice, which is usually then sweetened and spiced.

I shall yet think it a diminution to our happiness, to miss of half our companions and compotators of syllabub, not to have Mr. Newsham and his dogs, and his preceptors, and his dearly-beloved cousin, and his mathematics, and his Greek, and his horses.

In the evening I ſhall hope for the honour of your Lordſhip's company to take a diſh of tea there, or a ſullabub warm from the cow.

2

A dessert pudding derived from the drink.

Mother by hys sonne he hathe sende me a letter / Promysynge hereafter to be to vs better / And you and I with my greate clubbe / Muste walke to him and eate a solybubbe / and we shall make merye / and synge tyrle on the berye […]

To make Everlasting Syllabubs. Take three pints of the thickest and sweetest cream you can get, a pint of rhenish, half a pint of sack, three lemons, near a pound of double refined sugar, beat and sift your sugar, and put it to the cream; grate off the yellow rind of three lemons, put that in, and squeeze the juice of the three lemons into your wine; put that to the cream, beat all together with a whisk just half an hour, then take it up all together with a spoon, and fill your glasses.

3

Something lacking substance; something frothy, insubstantial, or lightweight.

I like Paul's plain style best. Better to feed the appetite of the hungry, than to tickle the fancies of the whimsical. This breed of preachers are apt soon to preach themselves out of breath, and come to nothing. May you and I never be the retailers of such whipt-syllabub divinity—better keep a cook's-shop to satisfy the craving appetite, than a confectioner's-shop to regale the depraved appetite of the dainty. Good brown-bread preaching is the best after all.

The truth is, the members indulged in too flippant a tone of discussion. The papers read every Saturday evening were characterized less by depth than buffoonery. They were all whipped syllabub. There was no investigation of first causes, first principles. There was no investigation of anything at all.

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