Scouse
/skaʊs
/British informal
noun
1 [mass noun] The dialect or accent of people from Liverpool: the man turned on him in Scouse...
- Accents range from broad Scouse though modifications towards RP and RP itself in the middle and upper classes.
- Griffiths' one-armed alcoholic main character narrates the novel in demotic Scouse - the accent sounds like a hymn sung through a dodgy carburettor or a nightingale racked with emphysema.
- You can hear as much Scouse as Welsh spoken in the streets of Bangor.
2 short for Scouser.The main thing is that the Scouses who were egging the poor lads on should hang their heads and shame!...
- I have served in the Royal Air force and I have yet to meet a scouse with any integrity.
- Every scouse bloke of a certain age had a group in the 60s.
adjective
Relating to Liverpool: a Scouse accent...
- Bob was a Scouser, he had a Scouse sense of humour and people thought he was terrific, the kids thought he was great as well.
- Plenty of Scouse artists have emerged since the beat explosion, but only a fraction have had any national impact.
- The play was set in Birkenhead, which meant that I had to do a Scouse accent for that, so I decided to stick with it for this too.
Origin
Mid 19th century: abbreviation of lobscouse.
The success of the Beatles and other Liverpool groups and singers in the 1960s focused attention on their native city, and the words Scouse and Scouser became widely familiar in Britain. They represent shortenings of lobscouse, a stew made with meat, vegetables, and ship's biscuit formerly eaten by sailors and so a staple food in the thriving port of Liverpool. Lobscouse is recorded from the early 18th century, but its origin is unknown. Before the 1960s Scouse meaning ‘Liverpudlian’ appeared in print only in a 1945 report of a trial, where a witness used the word and a puzzled judge asked for an explanation, although it was recorded 100 years earlier for the food.