Also 7 vento. [Sp. venta (= Pg. venda):—L. vendita: see VENT sb.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, trans. 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.
