cake and wine

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English

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Noun

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cake and wine (uncountable)

  1. (US, naval slang) A restricted diet of bread and water, imposed as a disciplinary measure.
    • 1980, The Compass, volumes 50-52, page 26:
      After a week of privation on pound cake and white wine (strangely the Navy's slang for solitary confinement on bread and water was "cake and wine") Carlsen received warm nourishment.
    • 2009, Chester A. Wright, Black Men and Blue Water, page 222:
      If one was 5 minutes late he got three days bread and water for a first offense. A second time got the culprit 5 days. Insolence and/or insubordination earned one a deck court-martial with 10 days on "cake and wine".
    • 2011, Stephen Curley, The Ship That Would Not Die:
      [] and the skipper threw him in the brig for five days on cake and wine (bread and water, in navy slang).
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cake,‎ wine.