[f. LITTER v. + -ING1.] In senses of the vb.
1. a. The action of furnishing beasts with litter, or covering a floor with litter. b. concr. The straw of an animal’s bed; a layer of litter in a stable. c. collect. Odds and ends scattered about.
a. 1607. Markham, Caval., V. iv. 15. This is called littering of Horses: and when you haue thus done, you shall let him rest till the next morning.
1849. Stephens, Bk. of the Farm, § 955. Mr. Hunter … tried … the littering of the break, occupied by the sheep, with straw.
b. 1382. Wyclif, Gen. xxxi. 34. Rachel … hidde the mawmetis under the literyng of a camele.
1856. Ferrier, Inst. Metaph., Introd. (ed. 2), 9. To add another coating to the infinite litterings of the Augean stable.
c. 1897. Daily News, 3 May, 7/2. Ten times more littering … is left by the fashionable promenaders on the expensive fête days.
2. The process of bringing forth (young) or of being brought forth.
1542–5. Brinklow, Lament., 26 b. The ionge in the lytterynge, or forth bryngynge.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 110. They [bitches] have milk about five days before the littering.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., III. xxv. 174. At the first littering their eyes are fastly closed.
