bilge

If you have ever sat at a restaurant, marveling at the bilge offered on the kids’ menu and wondering how on earth we got here, “Picky” has the answers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026

“Officers and surgeons roamed the decks, sniffing out potential culprits: foul bilge, moldy sails, rancid meat, human sweat, rotten timber, dead rats, piss and excrement, unwashed livestock, dirty breath,” Grann writes.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 18, 2023

Before long, water filled the base of the boat, the bilge pump grinding in a constant whir as it tried to keep up.

From New York Times ● Jan. 29, 2023

Emily Bell of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism worried that readers might be deluged with "bilge".

From BBC ● Dec. 6, 2022

I could see the bottom of the ship and the small fish swimming alongside the bilge drains.

From "Hole in My Life" by Jack Gantos

She urged measures such as requiring fishers and riverboat operators to bleach boat hulls, bilges, and wells after passing through an affected area.

From Science Magazine ● Oct. 20, 2021

We mapped the bilges out in the fall, came back and looked at them in spring, and there was nothing there.

From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2017

But it actually is a Spanish expression, “of where the sea goes”; while the Spanish never settled this area, they would empty their bilges so the ocean would wash away their effluence.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 20, 2016

Since hitchhiking to the Great Lakes in the bilges of ocean-going ships, they have expanded virtually unchecked and are considered a major threat to waterways including Lake Erie.

From Washington Times ● Mar. 29, 2015

With each dip and plunge of the boat, Worsley swooped the pot up in the air lest their precious hoosh go slopping into the bilges.

From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong

Many of them bilged, or failed to graduate!

From Time Magazine Archive

She thumped terribly, and almost every sea was breaking entirely over us when a seaman exclaimed, "She is bilged, a plank has come up from her bottom."

From Journal of Voyages Containing an Account of the Author's being Twice Captured by the English and Once by Gibbs the Pirate... by Dunham, Jacob

Her bottom bilged immediately, and the masts were as soon cut away, and the gallant ship, upon which hung the hopes of the colony, was now a complete wreck.

From The Naval Pioneers of Australia by Becke, Louis

In a short time after, she struck, bilged, and grounded, between two small islands, where Providence directed us to such a place as we could save our lives.

From A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time by Kerr, Robert

However, on arriving at the island I found that she was hopelessly bilged, so we at once set to work to strip her of everything of value, especially her copper, which was new.

From John Corwell, Sailor And Miner; and, Poisonous Fish 1901 by Becke, Louis

The ship continued to beat on the rocks, and soon bilging, fell with her broadside towards the shore.

From Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy A weird series of tales of shipwreck and disaster, from the earliest part of the century to the present time, with accounts of providential escapes and heart-rending fatalities. by Anonymous

In another instant she would be bilging helplessly among the sands of Africa, or would be on her course free and unimpeded for the shores of America!

From Ran Away to Sea by Reid, Mayne

"And that perhaps you've saved us from bilging?" added Midshipman Hayes.

From Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis by Hancock, H. Irving (Harrie Irving)

Indeed, to make her safe from bilging, Blood ordered a prompt jettisoning of the forward guns, anchors, and water-casks and whatever else was moveable.

From Captain Blood by Sabatini, Rafael

She was bilging fast, with an ominous list to larboard, and it could be no more than a question of moments before she settled down.

From Captain Blood by Sabatini, Rafael