food or provisions, typically prepared for consumption
► uses
Uses:
When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter with them,—that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself.
Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Joseph snatched up the food indignantly, and brought it to us.
‘Is there aught ails th’ victuals?’ he asked, thrusting the tray under Heathcliff’s nose.
Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights (1847)
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They would sometimes alight upon my victuals, and leave their loathsome excrement, or spawn behind, which to me was very visible,
Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels Into Several Remote Regions of the World (1726)
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He scanned the table for further victuals, apparently spotted nothing to his liking, and leaned back, folding his hands comfortably over his lean midriff.
Diana Gabaldon. Outlander (1991)
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We don't pay them for their salt, but for the labour of themselves and their beasts in lading it: for which we give them victuals, some money, and old clothes, namely hats, shirts, and other clothes: by which means many of them are indifferently well rigged; but some of them go almost naked.
William Dampier. A Voyage to New Holland, Etc. in the Year 1699
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"[...] Her father had to do with the victualling of passenger-ships. I think he was a species of purser."
Charles Dickens. Great Expectations (1861)
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And grub comes too easy—I don’t take no interest in vittles, that way.