Now Hist. Also 8 spinn-. [ad. Du. spinhuis (MDu. spinhuys), G. spinnhaus. Cf. SPINNING-HOUSE.] A house or building in which persons are employed in spinning. a. In reference to Continental usage: A house of correction or penitentiary for women. b. A workhouse.
a. a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 19 Aug. 1641. [At Amsterdam] we stepp’d in to see the Spin-house, a kind of Bridewell, where incorrigible and lewd women are kept in discipline and labour.
1703. trans. Nieuhoff’s Voy. to E. Indies, 306. For the Encouraging of Virtue and Suppressing of Debauchery in lewd Women, a Spin-House has been erected here.
1777. J. Howard, State of Prisons, 121. The States do not transport criminals: but men are put to labour in the Rasp-houses, and women do proper work in the Spin-Houses.
b. 1702. in Brand, Newcastle (1789), I. 327, note. Work-house, alias spinn-house.
