laystall
(ˈleɪstɔːl)
Also 6 laye-, leystall(e, 6–7 lei-, leystal, laystale, 7 leastall, lestal(l, ? loystal.
[f. lay v. + stall; perh. to be regarded as an altered form of next.]
† 1. A burial-place. Obs.
| 1527 Lanc. Wills (Chetham Soc.) I. 16 My bodye to be bured w{supt}in the white freris of Chester..and thei to have for my laystall xiijs. iiij{supd}. 1541 Ludlow Churchw. Acc. (Camden) 5 Reseyved of mastere Foxe for m{supr} wardens leystalle vjs. viijd. |
2. A place where refuse and dung is laid.
| 1553 Surrey Ch. Goods (1869) 98 A pese of grownd to make a leystall for the soyle of the hole paryshe. 1580 Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong, Voiries d'vne ville, the laystall of a towne. 1590 Spenser F.Q. i. v. 53 Many corses, like a great lay-stall, Of murdred men. 1610 Death Rauilliack in Harl. Misc. (Malh.) III. 112 The house..to be utterly ruinated, and be converted into a common leastall. 1612 Drayton Poly-olb. Pref. A, The common Lay-stall of a Citie. 1702 Lond. Gaz. No. 3825/4 The Ground called the Laystal at Mile-end. 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. (1858) 26 Five-million quintals of Rags picked annually from the Laystall. 1881 Times 25 Aug. 7/3 It does not require a very old man to remember a universal reign of cesspools, open ditches, and public laystalls, even in our largest and best kept towns. |
| attrib. 1745 De Foe's Eng. Tradesm. iii. (1841) I. 20 The brickmakers all about London mix seacoal-ashes, or laystal⁓stuff, as we call it, with their clay, of which they make brick. |
b. fig.
| 1629 H. Burton Babel no Bethel 66 The Schoole and Laystall of all impure spirits. a 1637 B. Jonson Underwoods, Little Shrub Growing by, There he was, Proud, false, and trecherous,..the lay-stall Of putrid flesh alive! 1644 Vicars God in Mount 152 Stage-playes..those most dirty and stinking sinks or lestalls of all kinde of abominations. a 1734 North Exam. i. iii. §99 (1740) 191 The Whole was no better than a Laystall of Lyes. |
3. ‘A place where milch cows are kept in London’ (Simmonds Dict. Trade 1858).