| 释义 |
sponging-house
Also 7–9 spunging-.
[f. sponging vbl. n. (in the sense of sponge v. 8 c).]
A house kept by a bailiff or sheriff's officer, formerly in regular use as a place of preliminary confinement for debtors.
αa1700B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Spunging-house, a By⁓prison. 1722De Foe Moll Flanders 60 In about two Years and a Quarter he Broke, got into a Spunging-House. 1765Ann. Reg. i. 134 It was again debated by several eminent lawyers, whether spunging-houses were to be deemed prisons, and finally determined in the negative. 1802–12Bentham Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827) IV. 636 In jail, or in a spunging-house, his effects..are as much in his power as if he were at home. 1871M. Collins Marq. & Merch. I. ix. 283 [We] have been in a spunging-house together.
fig.1827Hood Whims & Oddities, Bianca's Dream xii, In Death's most dreary spunging-house to lie.
β1838J. Grant Sk. Lond. 21, I have been arrested, and now locked up in a sponging-house for a debt I am wholly unable to pay. 1855Thackeray Newcomes I. 251 He had made himself much liked in the sponging-house. 1874L. Stephen Hours in Library (1892) II. iv. 135 His creditors..become more pressing, and at last he gets into a sponging-house. |