A caboose (also ''camboose, coboose, cubboos'' derived from the

Middle Dutch Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or c. 1550, there was no overarc ...

''kombuis'') is a small ship's

kitchen A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running wate ...

, or galley, located on an open deck. At one time a small kitchen was called a ''caboose'' if aboard a merchantman (or in Canada, on a

timber raft Timber rafting is a method of transporting felled tree trunks by tying them together to make rafts, which are then drifted or pulled downriver, or across a lake or other body of water. It is arguably, after log driving, the second cheapest mean ...

), but a ''galley'' aboard a

warship A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster ...

.''A Naval Encyclopaedia: comprising a dictionary of nautical words and phrases; biographical notices, and records of naval officers''; special articles on naval art and science, written expressly for this work by officers and others of recognized authority in the branches treated by them. Together with descriptions of the principal naval stations and seaports of the world. Lewis R. Hammersly & Co, Philadelphia, 1881. The term was sometimes also applied to the cast-iron

stove A stove or range is a device that burns fuel or uses electricity to generate heat inside or on top of the apparatus, to be used for general warming or cooking. It has evolved highly over time, with cast-iron and induction versions being develope ...

used for cooking on deck or in galleys during the early 19th century, as well as an outdoor oven or fireplace.''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', Fourth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company. William Falconer's 1780 ''A Universal Dictionary of the Marine'' describes a caboose thus: "a sort of box or house to cover the chimney of some merchant-ships. It somewhat resembles a sentry-box, and generally stands against the barricade on the fore part of the quarter-deck". Sometimes the caboose was portable. Prior to the introduction of the caboose the furnaces for cooking were, aboard

three-decker A three-decker was a sailing warship which carried her principal carriage-mounted guns on three fully armed decks. Usually additional (smaller) guns were carried on the upper works (forecastle and quarterdeck), but this was not a continuous b ...

s, placed on the middle deck, and aboard two-decked ships in the

forecastle The forecastle ( ; contracted as fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le) is the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or, historically, the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is the phrase " be ...

References

Ship compartments Nautical terminology Kitchen {{water-transport-stub