Meanings
- pluralplural onlyA traditional Scottish dish of stewed potatoes and onions with cold meat.
They accepted her offer graciously, not having a clue what ‘stovies’ might be. Meg soon explained that stovies was a traditional hearty scots meal made from potatoes, onions and left over meat served as a stew.
2012, Jessie Macquarrie, Camus Calling, UK: AuthorHouse, page 82 more examples
At home, after the fun of Dookin′ for Apples was over we sat round a huge dish of delicious stovies, which had cooked very slowly on the top of the stove in a covered pan, with salt and pepper and knobs of butter. Threepenny bits and charms were hidden in the stovies.
1975, Amy Stewart Fraser, Dae Ye Min′ Langsyne?: A Pot-Pourri of Games, Rhymes, and Ploys of Scottish Childhood, page 203During the winter months my granny always made me stovies on a Saturday and she would spoon them on top of the hot pie and I would sit at a table in front of the fire eating contentedly and thinking about the films I had seen that morning. Stovies, as my grandmother made them, were potatoes and onions cut into pieces and cooked slowly in a pan with only a covering of water at the bottom of the pan, a tablespoonful of roast beef dripping and some salt and pepper. They were delicious.
2008, Alan Bews, One Boy′s Dinner Please, page 44
Origin
From a blend of stoved (“stewed”) + tatties (“potatoes”).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
stovies. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/stovies
“stovies.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/stovies. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “stovies,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/stovies.
Source: stovies on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.