scuttlebutt

scuttlebutt

Gossip or rumor. A scuttlebutt was formerly the cask on a ship that held the day's supply of drinking water and a common place for sailors to engage in gossip. The latest scuttlebutt going around is that the company's going to have another round of layoffs in the new year. He accused his opponent of spreading scuttlebutt about his past.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

scuttlebutt

n. news; information; gossip. (The legend of origin is that the scuttlebutt was a butt [= cask, keg] of drinking water located near a scuttle [= hatch]. Sailors gathered there to exchange gossip.) What’s the scuttlebutt on the steeple clock? Why did it stop?
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • rumor monger
  • latrinogram
  • on the grapevine
  • on/through the grapevine
  • through the grapevine
  • a dog that'll bring a bone will carry a bone
  • furphy
  • latrine rumor
  • rumor
  • spill (the) tea
References in periodicals archive
Alas, the scuttlebutt was then squashed, leaving the rest of the world's skate honchos wondering aloud in unison: "How can I get my hands on all them Inter-addys?"
Subscribers will get daily updates of Jefferson City happenings and shenanigans, including scuttlebutt on legislators' activities, such as the heavy drinking that goes on, Drebes said.
I delightedly homed in on a Mac staffer I hadn't seen for yonks (I'll spare her blushes and not name her) and ended up slipping from current workplace scuttlebutt to memories of school days.
According to scuttlebutt, this Lubavitcher squarely defeated every person he challenged, to the point where he was even gaining a following among both halves of the Crown Heights population.
A: The scuttlebutt is the military has lost interest in the 6.8mm and, thus, Remington is losing interest, too.
The irony, of course, is that the names dropped during that supposedly private conversation would have come as no surprise to the media or the authorities because their sources of scuttlebutt are at least as good, probably far better, than Eriksson's.
In fact, scuttlebutt in Washington was that Nicolaisen had always said he planned to leave in the fall of 2005.
* A $2.67375 million acquisition/development loan for a single family home on Scuttlebutt Farm Rd.
From the scuttlebutt I've heard and the number of flashy street-racer cars I've seen around base.
Other lines have noticed NCL's success in this market, and scuttlebutt has it that more ships may soon be based yearround in your neighborhood.
c) Listen to the scuttlebutt but keep your own counsel?
And so is the scuttlebutt about the struggling state of our retail institutions.
Indeed, there has been a good deal of scuttlebutt in recent times that Gucci would sell, although it has always been met by the traditional denial from local management, who have invariably said the brand is scheduled for exciting new things.
While as a columnist I prefer policy to politics, my blog was filled with political scuttlebutt and speculation, the latest polls and observations on who was up and who was down.
Fox is a relation of the Mexican president, who, the scuttlebutt has it, flies into Bermuda at 3 a.m.