ppl. a. Also 6 spaied, spaide, 7 spaid, spead(e, spade, 8 speyed. [f. SPAY v.] Having the ovaries excised.
c. 1410. Master of Game (MS. Digby 182), xi. And also oo spayed bycche lasteth longer in hir bonte þenne oþer two þat be not spayed.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., III. (1586), 154 b. The spaide Bitches do bite sorest.
1607. Markham, Cavel., V. ix. 50. If they be speade or gelte mares, they be the worst of al.
a. 1658. Cleveland, Poems (1677), 39. The Groom is Rampant, but the Bride is Spade.
1684. Lond. Gaz., No. 1906/4. Stolen…, a Spaid Bay Mare about 15 hands high.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1757), 408. Such a sow was worth less by two shillings … than a spayed sow.
1779. Phil. Trans., LXIX. 286. When they are preserved it is … for all the purposes of an ox or spayed heifer.
1813. Sporting Mag., XLII. 23. Attended only by his two faithful spayed bitches.
1851. H. Stephens, Bk. Farm (ed. 2), I. 256/2. A quey-calf whose ovaries have been obliterated, to prevent her breeding, is a spayed heifer, or a spayed quey.
1859. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., V. 573/1. The spayed animal continued to breed until she was six years old.
