Definition of "barley-broth" [barley-broth]

• Broth made by boiling barley and meat with vegetables. (noun)
• Ale or beer: used jocosely, and also in contempt, as in the extract. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "Convince him of absurdity and vanity, when he mixes herbs, metals, and animals, and things from sea and land, in one potion; and recommend him to neglect these, and to confine all physic to barley-broth, gourds, and oil mixed with water."
• "For the same reason, long before she could read aloud to her mother intelligibly, she had learnt all that Harriet could teach her, not only of the house-work, but of the cooking, from cleaning a fish and trussing a fowl to making barley-broth and puff-pastry."
• "When Aunt Deborah is laid up with one of _her_ colds she always has a wonderful accession of "propriety" accompanying the disorder; and that which would appear to her at the worst a harmless _escapade_ when in her usual health and spirits becomes a crime of the blackest dye when seen through the medium of barley-broth and water-gruel -- these being"