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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Hardtack

Hardtack \Hard"tack`\ or Hard-tack \Hard"-tack`\(h[aum]rd"t[a^]k`), n.

  1. A name given by soldiers and sailors to a kind of unleavened hard biscuit or sea bread. Called also pilot biscuit, pilot bread, ship biscuit and ship bread

  2. Any of several mahogany trees, esp. the Cercocarpus betuloides.
    --MW10

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
hardtack

1836, "ship's biscuit," from hard (adj.) + tack (n.3); soft-tack was soft wheaten bread.

Wiktionary
hardtack

alt. (context nautical English) A large, hard biscuit made from unleavened flour and water; formerly used as a long-term staple food aboard ships. n. (context nautical English) A large, hard biscuit made from unleavened flour and water; formerly used as a long-term staple food aboard ships.

WordNet
hardtack
  1. n. very hard unsalted biscuit or bread; a former ship's staple [syn: pilot biscuit, pilot bread, sea biscuit, ship biscuit]

  2. a mountain mahogany

Wikipedia
Hardtack

Hardtack (or hard tack) is a simple type of biscuit or cracker, made from flour, water, and sometimes salt. Inexpensive and long-lasting, it was and is used for sustenance in the absence of perishable foods, commonly during long sea voyages, land migrations, and military campaigns. The name derives from the British sailor slang for food, "tack". It is known by other names such as brewis (possibly a cognate with " brose"), cabin bread, pilot bread, sea biscuit, sea bread (as rations for sailors), ship's biscuit, or ship biscuit, or pejoratively as " dog biscuits", " molar breakers", "sheet iron", "tooth dullers", or "worm castles". Australian and New Zealand military personnel knew them with some sarcasm as ANZAC wafers (not to be confused with Anzac biscuit).

Hardtack (game)

Hardtack is a set of rules for American Civil War miniature wargaming by Lou Zocchi. It was published as a thirty-page pamphlet by Guidon Games in 1971, with an introduction by Gary Gygax and artwork by Don Lowry.

Hardtack was the first set of American Civil War rules published in the United States and had an early following. Though it had been supplanted by Scott Bowden's Stars and Bars and John Hill's Johnny Reb 3 by the end of the decade and now is seldom played at wargaming conventions, Hardtack is considered groundbreaking, ushering in an era of Civil War miniature wargaming in the United States.

Usage examples of "hardtack".

He knew they were trading with the Yankees, that when the armies were close, the men along the picket lines would make their own quiet armistice, swapping their tobacco for coffee, newspapers for hardtack.

On the expedition to the Southern Territories, Tzetzas had seen that Raj sailed with weevily hardtack and bunker coal that was half shale.

He wouldn't go hungry, as he still had his last three or four hardtacks from Washington.

Murphv savs as how salt pork and hardtack is good enough for evcrN crew he's had to feed for thirty ycar-given figgy-doNvdy or plum duff for pudding, and beef on Sundays, too-though if that's beef, I'm a Chinaman -and it's good enough for us," Gordon burst in.

When weather drove her from the foredeck, she went to the ship's galley, where she revealed a gift for turning hardtack into a sort of doughy pudding much favored by the crew.