Also 7–9 spunging- [f. SPONGING vbl. sb. (in the sense of SPONGE v. 8 c).] A house kept by a bailiff or sheriff’s officer, formerly in regular use as a place of preliminary confinement for debtors.
α. a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Spunging-house, a By-prison.
1722. De Foe, Moll Flanders, 60. In about two Years and a Quarter he Broke, got into a Spunging-House.
1765. Ann. Reg., I. 134. It was again debated by several eminent lawyers, whether spunging-houses were to be deemed prisons, and finally determined in the negative.
1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), IV. 636. In jail, or in a spunging-house, his effects … are as much in his power as if he were at home.
1871. M. Collins, Mrq. & Merch., I. ix. 283. [We] have been in a spunging-house together.
fig. 1827. Hood, Whims & Oddities, Bianca’s Dream, xii. In Death’s most dreary spunging-house to lie.
β. 1838. Jas. Grant, Sk. Lond., 21. I have been arrested, and now locked up in a sponging-house for a debt I am wholly unable to pay.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, I. 251. He had made himself much liked in the sponging-house.
1874. L. Stephen, Hours in Library (1892), II. iv. 135. His creditors … become more pressing, and at last he gets into a sponging-house.
