Now dial. Forms: 1, 3–4 spitel (3 sputel), 5 spytelle, -yll, 6 spitil, 6–7 spittell; 4 spitle, 7– spittle. [OE. spitel (in the combs. hand-, wád-spitel), related to SPIT sb.3 and v.3]
1. A spade or small spade; a spud.
a. 1100. Gerefa, in Anglia, IX. 263. Spade, scofle, wadspitel.
12[?]. [implied in SPITTLE-STAFF].
133[?]. in Cal. Inq. post Mortem (1909), VII. 422. [Thirty] spitles [for digging turfs in the marsh].
1334–5. Ely Sacr. Rolls, II. 69. In iij ferr. emp. pro spitel, 6d.
1483. Cath. Angl., 356/1. A Spytelle, spata.
1514. Hist. Monast. St. Peter, Glouc. (Rolls), III. Introd. p. xl. Staves and knives, shovils, spitils, and mattockes.
1570. Richmond. Wills (Surtees), 228. One spittell, ij prignetts, xijs.
1617. Shuttleworths’ Acc. (Chetham Soc.), 226. Hen. Grymshaye, for a spittle of iron and steele, xiiijd.
1675. Hereford Dioc. Reg. (MS.), Digging with a small spade or spittle in his Garden.
1788. W. H. Marshall, Yorksh., II. 355. Spittle; a spaddle, or little spade.
1828–. in many dial. glossaries.
2. A hoe or scraper.
1832. Scoreby Farm Rep., 21, in Husb. (L.U.K.), III. The ground … was kept tolerably clean by the spittle and hand hoe. Ibid. This plantation has been kept perfectly clean with the spittle or Dutch hoe.
1855. [Robinson], Whitby Gloss., Spittle, an iron blade fixed across the end of a staff for scraping a shop floor in muddy weather.
3. A baking implement; a shovel or peel.
1838. Holloway, Prov. Dict., Spittle.… A board used in turning oat cakes.
1876–83. in Yks. and Lanc. glossaries.
4. attrib. and Comb., as spittle fork, -maker, -spade. See also SPITTLE-STAFF.
14[?]. Tundale’s Vis., 724. Summe had … nawg[er]es, Cultorus, syþus kene wytall, Spytyll-forkus þe sowlys to fall.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 608. Let there bee then either a small furrow rased along just through the middest of the shaddow with a spittle spade, or the point of some hooke.
1881. Instr. Census Clerks (1885), 43. Spittle Maker (Spade Handle).
