spital
(ˈspɪtəl)
Also 7 spitall, 8 spittal.
[Late respelling of spittle n.1 after hospital.]
1. = spittle n.1 1. Also in phr. to rob the spital.
| 1634 Younger Brother's Apol. 50 Bryand Lyle,..hauing two sonnes, both leprous, built for them a Lazaretto or Spitall. 1648 Hexham ii. App., Spitael, a Spitall, or Hospitall. 1737 J. Chamberlayne St. Gt. Brit. (ed. 12) 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 Fielding Tom Jones xii. i, Defrauding the Poor,..or, to see it under the most opprobrious Colours, robbing the Spittal. 1764 Churchill Poems, Independence 19 They rob the very Spital, and make free With those alas who've least to spare. 1830 Scott Demonol. 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 Tennyson Becket i. iv, I ha' nine darters i' the spital. |
b. spital sermon: see spittle n.1 5 c.
| 1755 Johnson, Spittal...In use only in the phrases, a spittal sermon, and rob not the spittal. 1827 De Quincey Murder Wks. 1862 IV. 25 One good horse-shoe is worth about two and a quarter Spital sermons. 1863 Macm. Mag. Mar. 412 When Barrow preached a spital-sermon before the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London. |
2. fig. A foul or loathsome place.
| 1771 Smollett Humph. Cl. To Sir W. Phillips 10 May, 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.
| 1794 Wordsw. 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. |