Sandwich

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /ˈsænˌdwɪt͡ʃ/

Definitions

1. A culinary creation that includes layers of fillings placed between two slices of bread
2. A dish made by placing a variety of ingredients between slices of bread, typically served as a hand-held food option
3. Two or more pieces of bread or a split roll enclosing ingredients such as meat, cheese, or vegetables, eaten as a meal or snack

Etymology: In November 1762, the young Edward Gibbon, later the historian of Rome's decline, dined at the Cocoa-Tree club in London and wrote in his journal of the country's most fashionable men supping at little tables "upon a bit of cold meat, or a Sandwich." It is the earliest known written use of the word, and it already treats the snack as something every reader would recognise. The name belonged to a man before it belonged to a meal. John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718–1792), was a powerful politician who served more than once as First Lord of the Admiralty. His title traced back to a small port in Kent, whose Old English name, "Sandwic," meant roughly "sandy harbour" or "trading place on the sand." His great-grandfather Edward Montagu took the title in 1660, after helping bring Charles II back to the throne. The famous story comes from a French visitor, Pierre-Jean Grosley, who described a minister of state who spent twenty-four hours at a gaming table, eating nothing but beef between two slices of toasted bread so that he never had to leave the game. The dish, Grosley said, took the minister's name. Grosley visited London in 1765, three years after Gibbon's diary entry. Montagu's modern biographer, N. A. M. Rodger, has suggested that a man with his workload more likely ate this way at his desk than at the card table. Whichever is true, the gambling tale was told about a name that was already in use. The earl certainly did not invent the idea. People had eaten meat with bread for as long as there had been bread. What he supplied was a fashionable name, and the way such a name usually spreads is simple: people ask for whatever the earl is having. His name spread across the world in other ways too. In 1778 Captain James Cook named the Sandwich Islands, now Hawaii, in honour of his patron at the Admiralty. By the mid-1800s the noun had also become a verb, so that anything pressed between two other things could be "sandwiched," and the men who walked the streets wearing advertising boards on their front and back were called sandwich-men.

Synonyms: sub, hoagie, roll, bocadillo, panini