| 释义 |
steeple-house
A building with a steeple.
1. Used by the early Quakers (and, before them, sometimes by other scrupulous persons) instead of ‘church’, on the ground that that word ought not to be applied to a building.
1644Quarles Whipper Whipt Wks. (Grosart) I. 161/2 It was first used when Steeplehouses, or Meeting-places were built, which Papists call Churches. 1654Whitlock Zootomia 161 Steeple houses (as Churches are styled in our new Childrens Dictionary). 1664G. Fox For All Bps. & Priests (1674) 31 Paul..had no Monastry nor Abbey, nor great Steeple house to preach in then. 1710C. Shadwell Fair Quaker Deal i. i. 11, I suppose the Fortune my Father left thee will be thrown into the Arms of one of the lewd Pillars of thy Steeple-house. 1785Grose Dict. Vulgar T., Steeple house, a name given to the church by Dissenters. 1877Whittier In the Old South 41 There are steeple-houses on every hand, And pulpits that bless and ban.
attrib.1681S. Fell in Jrnl. Friends' Hist. Soc. (1912) July 136 Unrighteous demands touchinge the Preists wages, and Steeplehouse Repaires, etc. 1710O. Sansom Acc. Life 33, I was Excommunicated..for not Paying the Steeple⁓house Tax.
2. gen. ? nonce-use.
1807Sir R. C. Hoare Tour Irel. 279 Round Towers... Peter Walsh supposes them to have been erected first by the Danes as watch-towers against the natives, and appropriated afterwards to holy uses, as Steeple-houses, and belfries. |