Also Sc. spairge. [f. next.]

1

  1.  The act of sprinkling or splashing; a sprinkle or slight dash (of liquor, etc.).

2

1808.  in Jamieson.

3

1819.  W. Tennant, Papistry Storm’d (1827), 56. Chariots and horse-hoofs round did scatter Scamander’s sand wi spairge and splatter.

4

1867.  G. W. Donald, Poems, 252.

        A spairge may put us in repair
When coughs an’ caulds our stammacks pester.

5

  2.  Brewing. A spray of warm water sprinkled over the malt.

6

1839.  Ure, Dict. Arts, 107. The malt is exhausted by eight or ten successive sprinklings of liquor…, which are termed in the vernacular tongue, sparges.

7

1869.  W. Molyneux, Burton-on-Trent, 244. The ‘sparge’ is set to run on the malt an additional quantity of water.

8