Now dial. Also 7 spitt. [OE. spittan, = MDu. and MLG. spitten (Flem., Du., LG. spitten, WFris. spitte, NFris. spat; also MDu. spetten, MLG. speten), perh. related to SPIT sb.1]
1. intr. To dig with a spade; to delve.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. IX. 184. An hep of eremites henten hem spades, Spitten and spradde donge in despit of hunger.
1648. Hexham, II. Spaden, to Delve, or to Spit.
2. trans. To plant with a spade.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., 453. When the heads thereof [sc. saffron] have been plucked up and after twenty daies spitted or set againe under mould.
1728. Douglas, in Phil. Trans., XXXV. 573. Spitting and setting the Heads … 1l. 12s. 0d.
b. intr. To admit of being dug in.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1757), 19. If dung was … short, such as ox-dung and horse-dung that would spit.
3. trans. To dig (up) with a spade; also, to turn up with a plough.
So OE. wád spittan, to dig up woad.
1648. Hexham, II. Spitten, to Spitt, as, to Spitt turfe.
1725. Phil. Trans., XXXIII. 397. Oftentimes the Tenants spit up as much as will serve their Turn for a Winter’s burning.
1764. Randall, in Museum Rust., III. 95. He must remember to go twice in a place with his plough, to keep the ground double spitted.
1843. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., IV. I. 41. Cross furrows … afterwards dug or ‘spitted’ by the spade.
1889. Trans. Devon. Assoc., XXI. 102. He sometimes comes up to spit the ground.
