‖ venta
(ˈventa)
Also 7 vento.
[Sp. venta (= Pg. venda):—L. vendita: see vent n.3]
A Spanish hostelry or wayside inn.
| 1610 in Birch Crt. & Times Jas. I (1848) I. 107 Our ventas and hostelries without victuals or lodging. 1618 R. Cocks Diary (1883) II. 89 As we retorned, we went into a vento or tavarne. 1662 J. Davies tr. Olearius' Voy. Ambass. 205 Those places..are as the Ventas in Spain, and serve for Inns upon the High-way. 1775 Twiss Trav. Portug. & Sp. 39 note, A venta is a lone house, established by public authority, for the convenience of travellers. 1792 Townsend Journ. Spain iii. 104 The waggoners and drovers.. being seated on the grass before the doors of a venta. 1817 Keatinge Trav. I. 69 A venta is seated at the foot of this road of ascent. 1846 Thackeray Cornhill to Cairo Wks. 1900 V. 609 Through the flaring lattices of the Spanish ventas comes the clatter of castanets. 1897 ‘H. S. Merriman’ In Kedar's Tents v, Beguiling the journey with cigarette and song, calling at every venta on the road. |