A ship’s cooking-stove; hence, the galley or ship’s kitchen. A word probably of Dutch origin. See Skeat’s ‘Etymol. Dict.’ Littré says that, in the form cambuse, it came into use in the merchant navy of France about 1750, meaning a ship’s kitchen.
1766. ’Twas imagined she took fire at sea, as her cabouse was burnt.—Boston Evening Post, Nov. 10.
1769. [They] sent out a Pilot Boat to search for the Vessel, but found only the Binnacle, a Caboose, and Sugar Box.—Boston Post-Boy, Feb. 6.
1786. For Sale, “One elegant patent caboose.”—Maryland Journal, June 23.
1790. This was the occasion of my losing my boat, caboose, &c., off the main deck.—Gazette of the U.S. (Phila.), Dec. 15.
1795. “Cambooses, pots, and other castings executed at the shortest notice.”—Advt., id., Aug. 4.
1799. “Ship’s Patent Cabooses” advertised.—Mass. Mercury, June 21.
1803. There never was any occasion for us to have recourse to the caboose.—John Davis, ‘Travels in the U.S.A.,’ p. 10 (Lond.).
1805. “Thirty Cambooses of different sizes.—Stove, &c.”—Advt., The Repertory, May 17 (Boston).
1809. Davidson then went from the quarter deck to the caboose.—Mass. Spy, Nov. 2.
1810. George Youle advertises that “His Cambooses have a great advantage over others. They cook for double the number of persons.”—The Repertory, Feb. 13.
1812. For sale, “One Patent Cabouse, suitable for a ship of 220 Tons, partly worn.”—Boston-Gazette, Sept. 28.
1819. He seized a brand of fire from the kettle which served for a caboose.—Western Review, Aug. (Lexington, Ky.).
1821. [They searched] every hole and corner of the vessel but the right one, and nothing was left unexamined but the caboose.—Mass. Spy, Aug. 1: from the Salem Gazette.
1834. If the bloody fool of a cook has not set fire to the boarding of the small galley—the caboose they calls it in merchantmen.—Blackwood’s Mag., xxxvi. 33.
1839. It was generally thought among those who had the first charge of me, I must have been the son of the ship’s cook, as I had an inordinate love of good eating, with a judgment in dainties, which could only be expected from one who had been indulged in the fat of the caboose.—R. M. Bird, ‘Robin Day,’ i. 16 (Phila.).
1844. His wanderings from camboose to cabin, and from cabin to camboose.—Watmough, ‘Scribblings and Sketches,’ p. 100 (Phila.).
