Now chiefly dial. and U.S. Also 5 spyket, spykkett, 6 spicat, 7, Sc. 8–9 spiket. [Alteration of SPIGOT sb.]
1. A spigot.
14[?]. Lat.-Eng. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 573. Clipsedra, a spyket.
14[?]. Metr. Voc., Ibid. 626. Clepsidra, spykkett.
1591. Harsey, Trav. (Hakl.), 252. [There were] som wines and spicats in their bellies to draw at.
1619. Pasquil’s Palin. (1877), 148. Into the vault the Iaylor down doth creep, Where how he deals with bung-holes and with spickets I cannot tell.
a. 1635. Randolph, Poems (1652), 16. His Eyes look like two Tunnels, his Nose like a Fausset with the Spicket out.
1739. Brome, in Lett. Eminent Persons (1813), II. 119. He … ran his fingers into the orifices, like spickets, of the arteries, and then knockt for his surgeon.
1747–96. Mrs. Glasse, Cookery, xxii. 343. Put them into a large vessel of wood or stone, with a spicket in it.
1804. A. Duncan, Marin. Chron., IV. 72. The spicket I perceived out of the cask, and the liquor running about.
1836. Haliburton, Clockm., Ser. I. xxxi. I guess I’ll whip out of the bung while he’s a lookin arter the spicket.
1893. Leland, Mem., II. 169. The Indian … took a glass and turned on the spicket.
attrib. 1654. Gayton, Pleas. Notes, IV. xvi. 256. Where his miscarriage is the more infamous and scandalous; insomuch, as that he is chiaus’d by two spicket-wenches.
b. In allusive use.
1615. Day, Festivals, iv. 94. They … spend their Birthright and Patrimonies upon the Spicket.
1654. Gayton, Pleas. Notes, III. vi. 102. The Brethren of the Spicket … lay downe for a fundamentall, that there is no living without Liquids.
2. A water-tap.
1888. J. & E. R. Pennell, Sent. Journ., 60. The waiter pointed to a small spicket and a handkerchief of a towel.
