Obs. exc. arch. Forms: 6 spal, 7, 9 spall; 7 spaule, 7–9 spaul; 6– spawl, 7 spawle. [Of obscure origin; both date and form are against direct connection with OE. spáld SPOLD.]
1. intr. To spit copiously or coarsely; to expectorate.
1607. Dekker & Webster, Westw. Hoe, V. i. Pray spawle in another roome: fie, fie, fie.
1649. W. M., Wander. Jew (1857), 23. He … so spawles, and drivells, he has almost made a puddle where he stands.
1730. Swift, Traulus, Wks. 1755, IV. I. 122. Why must he sputter, spawl, and slaver it In vain against the people’s fav’rite?
1755. Connoisseur, No. 95, ¶ 11. I began to spawl, and sputter, and keck.
[1864. Browning, Dram. Pers., Sludge, 200. He may strut and fret his hour, Spout, spawl, or spin his target, no one cares!]
fig. 1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, Wks. (Grosart), V. 286. Our Norwich now … was a poore fisher towne, and the sea spawled and springed vp to her common stayres.
b. Coupled with spit.
1598. E. Guilpin, Skial. (1878), 20. Talke bawdery and Chrestina spets and spals.
1609. Markham, Famous Whore (1868), 41. Now are my faculties … to cough, to spaule, to spit, to raile.
1683. Tryon, Way to Health, 170. Sotting and smoaking ten or twenty Pipes of Tobacco in a day,… and spitting and spawling.
1721. Amherst, Terræ Filius, No. 39 (1726), I. 49. The fellow … fell a spitting and spawling about the room.
1793. Laity’s Direct., 20. The unclean trick of hawking, spitting or spawling about the chapel.
c. Const. with preps., as at, on. Also fig.
1635. Quarles, Embl., III. ii. To spit and spaul upon his Sun-bright face.
1638. Mayne, Lucian (1664), 84. He presently grows disdainfull, and Spawles at me.
1659. W. Brough, Sacr. Princ., 405. Nor shouldst thou more spaul on His Name, then spit in His Face.
2. trans. To utter in a coarse manner.
1616. Earle, Elegy on Beaumont, B.’s Wks. 1905, I. p. xxxiii. Such mouthes,… That twixt a whiffe, a Line or two rehearse, And with their Rheume together spaule a Verse.
1794. Gifford, Baviad (1811), 46. And itching grandams spawl lascivious odes.
Hence Spawler, a spitter; Spawling ppl. a.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. i. III. Furies, 402. The spawling Empiem … With foule impostumes fils his hollow chest.
1603. Florio, Montaigne, I. xxxviii. (1632), 120. This man whom … thou seest…, flegmatike, squalide and spauling.
1611. Cotgr., Cracheur, a spitter, spawler, spatterer.
