Spucky, Spuckie or Spukie (sandwich)

The “spuckie” sandwich—also called “spucky,” “spukie” and “spooky”—is a Boston, Massachusetts version of an Italian sandwich, such as a “sub” or a “hoagie” or a “hero.”

“What Is a Spuckie? We’ve got hundreds of them every day for 5c TRY ONE. WHAT A MEAL! JOE’S GROCERY” was printed in the South Boston Gazette (Boston, MA) on October 11, 1940. “Do you know what is a Spuckie?” No? Well, we’ll tell you. It’s perhaps the biggest sandwich you ever ate, made with a quarter loaf of Boselli’s Italian bread, stuffed with meat and vegetables. A great many local residents are ‘going crazy about them’” was printed in the South Boston Gazette on October 18, 1940. “Have you heard the latest in sandwiches? ‘Spuckies,’ an Italian sandwich made on a long roll cut in half with a layer of meat, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, pickles, pepper, olive oil topped off with cheese, commonly called a submarine sandwich in some places. Try one at Frankie’s Sandwich Shop, 1286 Dorchester avenue (near Freeport street)” was printed in the Dorchester (MA) Citizen on August 18, 1949.

“Donofrio said he’s heard several possible origins for the word. One is that it comes from ‘spuccadella,’ which is a particular kind of Italian roll. Spucky rolls, he said, tend to be more pointy at the ends than normal sub roles and are split on the top” was posted on Boston Online.

The long list of the names of sandwiches served on long rolls includes blimpie, bomber, Cuban (medianoche), Dagwood, garibaldi, gondola, grinder, hero, hoagie, Italian,  jawbreaker, muffuletta, peacemaker (La Mediatrice), pilgrim, pistolette, po’ boy (poor boy), rocket, skyscraper, spiedie, submarine (sub), torpedo, torta (Mexican po’ boy), wedge and zeppelin (zep).
 
 
Amazon.com
The Dictionary of American Regional English
Volume V, Sl-Z
Joan Houston Hall, Chief Editor
Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
2012
Pg. 217:
spucky n Also spooky, spu(c)kie [Etym. uncert] chiefly Boston, MA area
A type of sandwich roll; by ext., the sandwich made with such a roll; a submarine sandwich.
1968-70 DARE (Qu. H41, .. Kinds of roll or bun sandwiches..in a round bun or roll) Inf MA122, Spooky [spu-ki]’ (Qu. H42, ..[A sandwich]..in a much larger, longer bun, that’s a meal in itself) InfMA7, Spucky {spuki].

Digital Commonwealth—Massachusetts Collections Online
11 October 1940, South Boston Gazette (Boston, MA), pg. 8, col. 5 ad:
What Is a Spuckie?
We’ve got hundreds of them every day for 5c
TRY ONE. WHAT A MEAL!
JOE’S GROCERY
Cor. M & 2nd Sts.  Tel. SOU. 9742

Digital Commonwealth—Massachusetts Collections Online
18 October 1940, South Boston Gazette (Boston, MA), “Around Town,” pg. 5, col. 3:
Do you know what is a Spuckie?” No? Well, we’ll tell you. It’s perhaps the biggest sandwich you ever ate, made with a quarter loaf of Boselli’s Italian bread, stuffed with meat and vegetables. A great many local residents are “going crazy about them.”

Digital Commonwealth—Massachusetts Collections Online
18 August 1949, Dorchester (MA) Citizen, pg. 2, col. 2:
Have you heard the latest in sandwiches? “Spuckies,” an Italian sandwich made on a long roll cut in half with a layer of meat, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, pickles, pepper, olive oil topped off with cheese, commonly called a submarine sandwich in some places. Try one at Frankie’s Sandwich Shop, 1286 Dorchester avenue (near Freeport street).

3 April 1954, Boston (MA) Daily Record, “Auto Gossip” by Otto Scoops, pg. 43, col. 3:
The eatery features “Spukies” that are out of this world.
(A restaurant near Stadium Motors—ed.)
 
10 November 1962, Boston (MA) Globe, pg. 5 ad:
All-Wheat Bread, Scoli Bread, French Rolls, Submarine Spuckies, Bulkies, Soft. Rolls, Italian Cookies and Pastry. Cassaro, Inc, is a family corporation.
 
11 April 1967, Record American (Boston, MA), “Imagination Can Add To Sandwich Treats” by Martha Lee, pg. 20, col. 4:
THE Earl of Sandwich would be amazed to see how far his little idea has gone. We Americans have heated his sandwich, halved it, eaten it with a knife and fork and held it daintily at tea parties. We have doubtless consumed millions of submarines, spuckies, torpedoes, or whatever the composition of what would undoubtedly astound the Earl.
 
27 June 1968, Record American (Boston, MA), “Construction Workers: These Hard Working Men Really Know How to Eat!” by Averil Lashley, pg. 31, col. 1:
Digging into brown bags and canvas satchels (lunch boxes seem to be out of fashion) those hard-working men eagerly pull out an assortment of edibles raning from fully packed baked bean sandwiches to “spuckies” filled with delights from the corner Jewish delicatessen to all manner of cookies, pastry and fruit.
   
Boston Online
The final word on spuckies
From “The Answer Guys,” Middlesex News, 10/31/93.
(...)
Donofrio said he’s heard several possible origins for the word. One is that it comes from “spuccadella,” which is a particular kind of Italian roll. Spucky rolls, he said, tend to be more pointy at the ends than normal sub roles and are split on the top.

Tony Luke’s (2024)
The History of the Spuckie Sandwich
(...)
COMMENTS
Alison Moore says:
January 3, 2025 at 8:58 am
Above, you mistakenly typed “Spuccadella is a popular Italian RULE” instead of a popular Italian ROLL, so the whole paragraph gets confusing. You probably want to fix that right away.

Additionally, when I tapped on the word Spuccadella and chose “Look up,” I was taken to a Wikipedia page, which was quite interesting. It said Spuccadella was an Italian American bread roll used to make the Spuckie sandwich. But it explained that in the written language of Italy the word Spuccadella does not exist. The real Italian spelling of the word referring to the type of roll the Spuckie is made on is “Spaccatella.” It is believed that early Italian Americans immigrants had misspelled Spaccatella and now it was spelled “Spuccadella.”

But the thing that struck me was the fact that Italians would pronounce the u in Spuccadella as a long u sound, yielding Spook-a-Della and it’s hard to get the Spuckie from that. The word Spuckie seems MUCH more likely to have come from the real Italian word for that bread roll, Spaccatella, because in English the short u sound and the short a sound are identical (like the a in ago or sofa sounds just like the u in under or ugly, and the u and a sound the same in umbrella or tundra.) So Spuckie would be a natural shortening and Americanizing of Spaccatella.

X/Twitter
IAHEAGLE (Rich S)
@SRSanders2
Spuckie
A sandwich served on a long roll may be called a hoagie in the Mid-Atlantic or a sub in the Midwest. But to Bostonians, these hefty sandwiches are known as spuckies. This regionalism is derived from the Italian slang spucadella, which translates to “long roll.” However, spucadella isn’t a common word in Italy itself. It’s believed to have originated within Italian American communities in Boston, and it was then shortened as the name of a locally popular type of sandwich.
5:08 PM · Aug 11, 2026