a. Also 5 spaueyned, 7 spavend. [L. SPAVIN sb.1] Of horses, etc.: Affected with spavin; having a spavin. Also absol. (of persons).
c. 1430. Pilgr. Lyf Manhode, II. civ. (1869), 114. With whiche [garments] queyntisen hem as wel the halte, the boistouse, the spaueyned, the blynde, the embosed, the maymed and oothere.
1684. Lond. Gaz., No. 1965/4. A brown bay Gelding,… a little Spavend of his near Leg behind.
1727. Somerville, Bald Batchelor, Poems (1810), 215/2. A mare,… Though she be spavin’d, old, and blind, With founder’d feet, and broken wind.
1788. J. May, Jrnl. & Lett. (1873), 19. I observed my horse to be lame…. Some said he was hipped, others spavined.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy, xix. He … made a present to Andrew of a broken-winded and spavined pony.
1867. Trollope, Chron. Barset, xiii. [He] had ridden over … on a poor spavined brute belonging to the bishop’s stable.
b. fig. Lame, halting, maimed, etc.
1647. N. Ward, Simp. Cobbler, 37. If any have a minde to ride poste, he will helpe them with a fresh spavin’d Opinion at every Stage.
1822. Byron, Vis. Judgm., xci. Ere the spavin’d dactyls could be spurr’d Into recitative.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. ix. 93. After a diversified series of spavined efforts, the mystical number forms its triangle at the table.
1863. Sat. Rev., 200. We turn our spavined horses out to grass…; we are sadly in need of some analogous arrangement for spavined Christians.
