spirit housen.
/ˈspɪrɪt haʊs/, U.S. /ˈspɪrᵻt ˌhaʊs/ 1.
a. A warehouse trading in alcoholic spirits, or in which alcoholic spirits are stored. Now rare.In quot. 1788 in the collocation wine and spirit house, denoting a warehouse trading in both wine and alcoholic spirits.
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1788 Derby Mercury 18 Sept. The great Wine and Spirit House in Bishopsgate-street, carried on for a Number of Years under the Firm of Richardson and Stevenson.]
1805 Morning Chron. 9 Jan. Wharfs, spacious still-house, brew-house, spirit-houses, malt-kiln, granaries, [etc.].
1913 Country Life 4 Jan. (Suppl.) p. xxv/3 (advt.) Portable wood and iron motor-car houses and cycle houses..also fireproof steel spirit houses, petrol safes, garage roofs etc.
2007 Dublin Hist. Rec. 60 160 This company bottled and distributed Kinahan's LL whisky... In November 1927, the two spirit houses combined and were registered as Bagot Hutton & Kinahan.
b. A tavern or public house licensed to serve alcoholic spirits. Now rare and historical.
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the world > food and drink > drink > drinking > drinking place > [noun] > tavern or public house > house providing other drinks
mead-inn1632
punch-house1661
gin house?1720
gin shop1723
thermopolion1753
whisky-house1767
spirit house1807
1807 D. Carpenter Refl. suggested by Mr. Whitbread's Bill 54 All tipplers, and frequenters of ale and spirit houses.
1889 Brewers' Guardian 15 Oct. 326/2 Application was made..for a full licence to the house, on the grounds of the great distance from a spirit-house, his being frequently asked for spirits.
1951 Wilts. Times 14 Apr. 5/2 There was a great demand for spirits at Atworth, particularly from visitors who did not remain when told it was not a spirit house.
1990 Jrnl. Amer. Ethnic Hist. 10 61 After the Great Famine, the spirit house became the central institution of social life in Ireland.
2. A house or dwelling for a spirit; spec. (in South-East Asia) a model of a building, typically a house or temple mounted on a pillar or dais outside a house, shop, etc., in order to appease, and provide a home for, the original spirit inhabitants of the land (cf. quots. 1966, 2008).
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1846 H. Hale U.S. Exploring Exped.: Ethnogr. & Philol. 78 The natives worship a deity whom they term yaris... The temple is called vĕre yaris, or spirit-house.
1966 Mrs. L. B. Johnson White House Diary 27 Oct. (1970) 437 There were ‘spirit houses’ everywhere—brightly decorated little houses..about the size of a bird house, standing on stilts—one beside almost every residence. These houses are to entice the spirits so they will leave your house to you.
2003 I. Ferguson Village Small Houses iv. 65 The cemetery on top had one or two proper gravesites and a few Christian crosses, but the majority of the plots were Spirit Houses, which is what the [Cree] Indians called the buildings they erected over their dead.
2008 E. Weiner Geogr. of Bliss vii. 299 In front of each shop, each home, is a spirit house. These look like elaborate, beautiful birdhouses.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2020; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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