[f. LITTER sb.]
† 1. trans. To carry in a litter. Obs. rare–1.
1713. ? Darrell, Gentl. Instructed, I. Suppl. iii. 18. These Pagan Ladies were litter’d to Campus Martius, ours are coach’d to Hide-Park.
2. To furnish (a horse, etc.) with litter or straw for his bed; humorously, to provide (a person) with a bed. Also to litter down.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVIII. xli. (1495), 802. The colte is not lyttrid wyth strawe nother coryed wyth an horse combe.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 291. It shall be necessary to keep him warm … by littering him up to the belly with fresh straw.
a. 1670. Hacket, Abp. Williams, II. (1693), 30. Tell them how they litter their Jades and exercise Merchandize in the House of God.
1737. Bracken, Farriery Impr. (1749), I. 77. Bedding or littering him down with dry clean Straw.
1799. Washington, Lett., Writ. 1893, XIV. 220. That the stock may be well fed,—littered,—and taken care of according to the directions.
1840. Hood, Kilmansegg, xvi. One is litter’d under a roof Neither wind nor waterproof.
1859. F. A. Griffiths, Artil. Man. (1862), 221. Let him be returned to the stable, littered down.
1861. Smiles, Engineers, II. 112. Thrashing straw to litter the large stock of cattle he had on hand.
absol. 1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., I. (1586), 41 b. Al kinde of strawe, is good to litter withall.
transf. or fig. 1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., I. 129. I love the browning bough to see That litters autumn’s dying bed.
3. intr. To lie down on a bed or on litter. rare.
1634. Habington, Castara, II. 72. The Inne, Where he and his horse litter’d.
1858. W. Arnot, Laws fr. Heaven, II. 279. That poor wretch … has a number of children littering in the hovel which they call their home.
4. trans. † a. To compound (plaster) with or as with litter (obs.). (Cf. LITTER sb. 3 c.) b. nonce-use. To plaster.
1559. Morwyng, Evonym., 65. Some use pure clay littered with ox heare.
1862. J. Skelton, Nugæ Crit., i. 60. The hovels of the natives were built of turf, littered with mud.
5. To cover with litter. Also with down.
1700. Dryden, Cock & Fox, 226. But, for his ease, well littered was the floor.
1813. Sporting Mag., XLII. 55. A loose stable, well littered down with fresh straw.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., II. iii. (1891), 73. Mind, which grows, not like a vegetable (by having its roots littered with etymological compost), but like a spirit.
6. a. To cover as with litter, to strew with objects scattered in disorder. Also with round, up.
1713. Swift, Cadenus & Vanessa, Wks. 1755, III. II. 15. They found The room with volumes litter’d round.
1770. Foote, Lame Lover, II. Wks. 1799, II. 68. You know how angry your mother is at their rapping, and littering the house.
1784. Cowper, Task, VI. 280. Littering with unfolded silks The polished counter.
1825. Scott, Fam. Lett., 17 May. We need not litter up your house … as we can always get into a hotel.
1859. Dickens, T. Two Cities, II. v. A dingy room lined with books and littered with papers.
1883. Froude, Short Stud., IV. I. iv. 49. Dinner was over. The floor was littered with rushes and fragments of rolls and broken meat.
1895. E. A. Parkes, Care Health, 35. Serving merely to litter up the surface of the earth.
b. To scatter in disorder about, on, over.
1731. Swift, Strephon & Chloe, 289. View them litter’d on the floor, Or strung on pegs behind the door.
1863. Fr. A. Kemble, Resid. in Georgia, 31. Firewood and shavings lay littered about the floors.
1883. Ld. R. Gower, My Remin., I. xviii. 358. A room … which we found full of soldiers asleep littered over the floor.
c. Of things: To lie about in disorder upon.
1856. Lever, Martins of Cro’ M., 14. Pieces of stuccoed tracery … littered the garden and the terrace.
1882. B. D. W. Ramsay, Recoll. Mil. Serv., II. xiv. 41. Papers, belonging to our various departments under him, littering his table.
1896. A. E. Housman, Shropshire Lad, xli. Or littering far the fields of May Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay.
7. Of animals, occas. transf. in contemptuous use of human beings: To bring forth (young).
1484. Caxton, Fables of Æsop, I. ix. Whan the bytche had lyttred her lytyl dogges.
1576. Turberv., Venerie, 187. She doth lytter them deepe under the ground and so the wolf doth not.
1607. Shaks., Cor., III. i. 239. I would they were Barbarians, as they are, Though in Rome littered. Ibid. (1610), Temp., I. ii. 282. Saue for the Son, that [s]he did littour heere, A frekelld whelpe, hag-borne.
1622. Donne, Serm., clvi. VI. 231. Lions are littered perfect but Bear-whelps licked unto their shape.
1867. Smiles, Huguenots Eng., v. (1881), 84. Wolves littered their young in the deserted farmhouses.
1874. Supernat. Relig., I. I. iv. 112. He must take the after-birth of a black cat, which has been littered by a first-born black cat.
fig. a. 1814. Orpheus, III. i. in New Brit. Theatre, III. 299. For now I see Calamity is littering plagues to me.
b. absol. or intr.
1484. Caxton, Fables of Æsop, I. ix. A bytche which wold lyttre and be delyuerd of her lytyl dogges.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 30. Pliny precisely affirmeth that they litter the thirtyeth day after their conception.
1733. Swift, On Poetry, Wks. 1755, IV. I. 184. Infants dropt, the spurious pledges Of gipsies litt’ring under hedges.
1848. Macaulay, Hist., xii. Wks. 1866, II. 504. If ever it [Kerry] was mentioned, it was mentioned as a horrible desert … where the she wolf still littered.
