Also 7 sparabile, sperrable, 9 sparrable, -bil. [Reduced form of SPARROW-BILL.]
1. A small headless wedge-shaped iron nail (stouter than a sprig), used in the soles and heels of boots and shoes.
α. a. 1627. H. Shirley, Mart. Soldier, III. i. in Bullen, Old Pl. He would put Sparabiles into the soules then?
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Sparables or Sparrow-Bills, a sort of small Iron-nails, which some Country-People wear in their Shooes.
a. 1780. in Christabel Coleridge, Life C. M. Yonge, 3. [A letter … complaining that he had been sent to Oxford with] sparables in his shoes.
1827. Faraday, Chem. Manip., xxiv. (1842), 605. Burn a cast-iron sparable in the same manner.
1839. Carleton, Fardorougha, vii. Why did you get … three rows of sparables in the soles o’ them?
1876. Blackmore, Cripps, xlix. 356. His heels had their sparables as good as new.
β. 1648. Herrick, Hesper., Upon Cob, Epig., 266. His thumbnailes-par’d afford him sperrables.
1828. Carr, Craven Gloss., Sparrables, short nails without heads, used by shoe-makers.
1831. J. Holland, Manuf. Metals, I. 216. The portions chopped off would be sparrables.
1893. Moira O’Neill, Dimpses, 42. You could have counted the sparrabils in the soles.
2. attrib. and Comb., as sparable-cutter, -paved adj.; sparable-tin (see quot.).
1824. Mactaggart, Gallovid. Encycl., 79. The mowdieman’s shoon being sparrable paved.
1864. Smyth, Cat. Min. Coll., 17. Cassiterite, in ditetragonally terminated crystals, locally termed ‘Sparable Tin.’
1884. Times, 8 Jan., 2/6. A ‘sparable-cutter’ is a personage well known among the nailers of Cradley and Halesowen.
