▪ I. spart1
(spɑːt)
[ad. L. spart-um or Sp. esparto. Cf. sparto and spartum.]
1. Esparto. Also spart-grass.
In quot. 1601 ship-sparts are simply ‘cables’, Pliny's navium sparta being a direct citation of the Homeric νεῶν σπάρτα (Iliad ii. 135).
| 1600 Holland Livy xxii. xx. 444 They found great store of Spart (to make cables) provided and laid up there by Asdruball to serve the navie. 1601 ― Pliny II. 188, I wot not well whether Homer meant it, when he said, that the ship-sparts were vntwisted and loose. For this is certain, that neither the spart of Africk, ne yet the Spanish spart was as yet in any vse. 1809 tr. Laborde's View Spain i. 9 A plain..fertile in flax and spart, or sea-rush. 1866 Treas. Bot. 1076/2 Spart, the Esparto. 1909 Eng. Rev. Feb. 462 Discussing the while the olive harvest, the price of spart-grass and the chances of the bull-ring. |
¶ 2. Spanish broom. Also spart-broom. Obs.
| 1601 Holland Pliny II. 6 The nature of Spart or Spanish broome. 1603 ― Plutarch's Mor. 156 The Roper..suffereth an asse behind him to gnaw and eate a rope as fast as he twisteth it of the Spartbroome. 1611 Florio, Genêstra, Spart or Spanish-broome. 1726 Leoni Alberti's Archit. I. 58 Under these we ought to lay Fern, or Spart, to keep the mortar from rotting the Timber. Ibid. 93 Spart and rushes shred small. |
▪ II. spart2 north. dial. (and Sc.).
(spɑːt)
[app. a metathetic form of sprat in the same sense.]
A dwarf rush; a coarse rushy grass.
| 1614 Mem. St. Giles's, Durham (Surtees) 44 For one thrave of spartes to the Bull house. 1792 Trans. Soc. Arts X. 127 Wild marshy grass, rushes, sparts, bents, brambles and brushwood. 1829 Brockett N.C. Gloss. (ed. 2), Spart, a dwarf rush; common on the Northern moors and wastes. |
▪ III. † spart3 Obs.—1
App. a term of abuse, of obscure origin.
| c 1460 Towneley Myst. xii. 271 Godys forbot, thou spart, and thou drynk euery deyll. |