spitaln.
/ˈspɪtəl/ 1.
a. = spittle n.1 1. Also in to rob the spital.
ΘΚΠ
society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > getting or making money > get or make money [verb (intransitive)] > make profit > profiteer
to rob the spittle1632
to rob the spital1749
to laugh (also to cry and variants) all the way to the bank1908
profiteer1917
1634 Younger Brother's Apol. 50 Bryand Lyle,..hauing two sonnes, both leprous, built for them a Lazaretto or Spitall.
1648 H. Hexham Groot Woorden-boeck App. Spitael, a Spitall, or Hospitall.
1737 Chamberlayne's Magnæ Britanniæ Notitia (ed. 33) i. iii. x. 226 This house has been a Religious house, time out of mind, sometimes under the Denomination of a Priory or College, sometimes under that of a Spittal [earlier edd. Spittle] or Hospital.
1749 H. Fielding Tom Jones IV. xii. i. 194 Defrauding the Poor,..or, to see it under the most opprobrious Colours, robbing the Spittal . View more context for this quotation
1764 C. Churchill Independence 19 They rob the very Spital, and make free With those alas who've least to spare.
1830 W. Scott Lett. Demonol. & Witchcraft iv. 132 A witch from the spital or almshouse.
1865 Daily Tel. 26 Oct. 5/2 ‘Every inch a Queen’ was Eugénie when she drove from cholera-infected spital to spital.
1884 Ld. Tennyson Becket i. iv. 85 I ha' nine darters i' the spital.
b. spital sermon n. see spittle n.1 Compounds 2c.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > worship > preaching > [noun] > instance of > preached on Easter Monday and Tuesday
spittle sermona1596
spital sermon1755
1755 S. Johnson Dict. Eng. Lang. Spittal...In use only in the phrases, a spittal sermon, and rob not the spittal.
1827 T. De Quincey On Murder in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Feb. 207/2 One good horse-shoe is worth about 2i/ 4 Spital sermons.
1863 Macmillan's Mag. Mar. 412 When Barrow preached a spital-sermon before the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London.
2. figurative. A foul or loathsome place.
ΘΚΠ
the world > physical sensation > cleanness and dirtiness > dirtiness > dirty place > [noun]
fenc888
longayne1340
sloven's inn?1518
slut's corner1570
sink1590
Augean stable1596
spittle1624
spital1771
expectoratory1836
mill-tail1854
stable1903
pisshole1928
1771 T. Smollett Humphry Clinker I. 137 He declares, he will sooner visit a house infected with the plague, than trust himself in such a nauseous spital for the future.
3. A shelter for travellers.
ΘΚΠ
society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > dwelling place or abode > accommodation or lodging > [noun] > lodging-place > temporary > for travellers, pilgrims, etc.
schooleOE
hospitalc1300
khanc1400
xenodochy?c1550
posting inn1556
vent1577
caravanserai1585
yam1587
serai1609
venta1610
post-house1611
xenodochium1612
imaret1613
seraglio1617
rancho1648
hospitium1650
watering-house1664
choultry1698
accommodation house1787
stage-house1788
spital1794
stand1805
resthouse1807
hospice1818
resting1879
stopping house1883
truck stop1961
1794 W. Wordsworth Guilt & Sorrow xvii Kind pious hands did to the Virgin build A lonely Spital, the belated swain From the night terrors of that waste to shield.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1914; most recently modified version published online March 2021).
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n.1634