- 1
To victual a ship, an army, a fort, or a town means to supply it with food — to load it up with enough to eat for the time ahead. It is an old military and naval word, and that is where you will almost always meet it: 'the fleet was victualled at Portsmouth', 'they had three days to victual the garrison'. It is not a word for feeding one person a meal; it is about provisioning a large group for a stretch of time, which is why it lives in history writing and sea stories rather than in modern speech. Two things surprise everybody. The spelling and the sound do not match: victual is said like 'VIT-ul', exactly as if it were spelled vittle — the c came from someone tidying the spelling toward Latin long after the pronunciation had settled. Second, English also has the informal spelling vittle, which is the same word written the way it sounds. As a verb it can also be intransitive and mean to take on supplies or to eat — 'the ships victualled at Malta' — though that is rare and old-fashioned. Today the word survives mostly in the noun form victuals, and in British job titles and old shop signs such as 'licensed victualler', a person licensed to sell food and drink.
供應糧食、補給食物（給船隊、軍隊、要塞等大批人補給；讀作 VIT-ul，跟拼法對不上）
組成From Middle English vitailen, from Old French vitailler, from vitaille 'food, provisions' — which goes back to Late Latin vīctuālia, from Latin vīctus 'nourishment, what sustains life'. The English spelling was later reshaped toward the Latin, adding a c that nobody says.
同家族的字
- victualsthe noun from the same Old French vitaille — the food itself
- victuallerone who supplies food; as in 'licensed victualler'
原始詞典資料7 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
victualnoun詞源 1/ˈvɪtəl/
- 1
archaicFood fit for human (or occasionally animal) consumption.
- Shift bore (for il aire) as best ye do thinke, / and twise a day giue him fresh vittle and drinke: […]
- [T]hough the Cameleon Loue can feed on the ayre, I am one that am nouriſh'd by my victuals; and would faine have meate: [...]
- 2
archaicFood supplies; provisions.
- It is good to make prouiſion, for peraduenture wee ſhall lacke victuals and wee lie in campe on Blacke Heath long.
- The citie was thus taken, many of the Turks fled into the caſtell, the reſt were put vnto the ſword, man, woman, and child; and amongſt them alſo many of the Chriſtians, the furious ſouldiers taking of them no knowledge. Great wealth was there found, but ſmall ſtore of victuals.
- 3
obsoleteEdible plants.
- [C]onſider, what Victuall or Eſculent Things there are, which grow ſpeedily, and within the yeere, As Parſnips, Carrets, Turnips, Onions, Radiſh, Artichokes of Hieruſalem, Maiz, and the like. […] The Victuall in Plantations, ought to be expanded, almoſt as in a Beſieged Towne; That is, with certaine Allowance.
- 4
obsoleteGrain of any kind.
- But if the beast and branks be spar'd / Till kye be gaun without the herd, / An' a' the vittel in the yard, / An' theckit right, / I mean your ingle-side to guard / Ae winter night.
victualverb詞源 2/ˈvɪtəl/
- 1
archaicgovernmentmilitarynauticalTo provide (military troops, a place, a ship, etc., or oneself) with a stock of victuals or food; to provision.
- [T]hy louing voyage / Is but for two moneths victuall’d: […]
- Spinola [Ambrogio Spinola, 1st Marquess of Los Balbases] continueth in his trenches before Breda, and victualeth and strengtheneth Breda, which being done, it is thought he will besiege Bergen op Zoom.
- 2
archaicgovernmentmilitarynauticalTo lay in or procure food supplies.
- [Letter from Sir William Drury to Sir William Cecil, 3d April 1568 (Julian calendar).] The Lord Fleming [i.e., John Fleming, 5th Lord Fleming], notwithstanding he still victualleth and maketh provision, he hath offered three personages of as great livehood as himself to enter caution and surety unto the [James Stewart, 1st] Earl of Moray, that he shall only hold the place at the devotion and service of the young King, and to no other.
- For though we took a little Flower hard by, yet the ſame Guide which told us of that Ship would have conducted us where we might had ſtore of Beef and Maiz: but inſtead thereof we lost both our time and the opportunity of providing our ſelves, and ſo were forced to be victualling when we ſhould have been cruizing off Cape Corrientes in expectation of the Manila Ship.
- 3
archaicTo eat.
- I have Drank and Victual’d at Sir Humphrey’s for a Months Famine I am to endure here—I am hung round with Bottles and ſtuft full of Proviſion; will you eat a Pullet?
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。