A building with a steeple.
1. Used by the early Quakers (and, before them, sometimes by other scrupulous persons) instead of ‘church,’ on the ground that that word ought not to be applied to a building.
1644. Quarles, Whipper Whipt, Wks. (Grosart), I. 161/2. It was first used when Steeplehouses, or Meeting-places were built, which Papists call Churches.
1654. R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 161. Steeple houses (as Churches are styled in our new Childrens Dictionary).
1664. G. Fox, For All Bps. & Priests (1674), 31. Paul … had no Monastry nor Abbey, nor great Steeple house to preach in then.
1710. C. Shadwell, Fair Quaker Deal, I. i. 11. I suppose the Fortune my Father left thee will be thrown into the Arms of one of the lewd Pillars of thy Steeple-house.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulgar T., Steeple house, a name given to the church by Dissenters.
1877. Whittier, In the Old South, 41. There are steeple-houses on every hand, And pulpits that bless and ban.
attrib. 1681. S. Fell, in Jrnl. Friends’ Hist. Soc. (1912), July, 136. Unrighteous demands touchinge ye Preists wages, & Steeplehouse Repaires, &c.
1710. O. Sansom, Acc. Life, 33. I was Excommunicated … for not Paying the Steeple-house Tax.
2. gen. ? nonce-use.
1807. Sir R. C. Hoare, Tour Irel., 279. Round Towers…. Peter Walsh supposes them to have been erected first by the Danes as watch-towers against the natives, and appropriated afterwards to holy uses, as Steeple houses, and belfries.
