Brewer's: Strasburg Goose

(A). A goose fattened, crammed, and confined in order to enlarge its liver. Metaphorically, one crammed with instruction and kept from healthy exercise in order to pass examinations.

“The anæmic, myopic, worn-out creature who comes to [the army]- a new kind of Strasburg goose.” —Nineteenth Century, January, 1893, p. 26.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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