The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 11 letter word SLUMGULLION
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Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "American’s watery stew" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case american’s watery stew = slumgullion.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does SLUMGULLION mean?
SLUMGULLION noun- A stew of meat and vegetables.
- A beverage made watery, such as weak coffee or tea.
- A reddish muddy deposit in mining sluices.
- A mixture of unrelated things, a jumble or hodgepodge.
- A sperm whaleman's term, roughly equivalent to the right whaleman's "gurry" which, according to Herman Melville, "designates the dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the Greenland or Right Whale, and much of which covers the decks of those inferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan."(Melville 323) Derivation for this term likely originates with the word "slobgollion" which is, according to Melville's Moby Dick, "an appellation original with the whaleman, and even so is the nature of the substance. It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting. I hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured Membranes of the case, coalescing." (Melville 323)