[f. STORE sb. + HOUSE sb.]
1. A building in which goods are stored.
1348. MS. Acc. Exch. K. R. 470/18 m. 9. Pro vna serura noua empta pro hostio del storhus vj. d.
1463. Bury Wills (Camden), 22. She to haue the storehous therto to leye in hire stuffe.
1526. Tindale, Luke xii. 24. Which nether have stoore housse ner barne.
1605. Shaks., Macb., II. iv. 34. Where is Duncans body? Macd. Carried to Colmekill, The Sacred Store-house of his Predecessors, And Guardian of their Bones.
1664. Pepys, Diary, 12 July. And fine storehouses there are and good docks.
1748. Anson’s Voy., III. ii. 307. One of these huts which the Indians made use for a store-house was very large.
1857. Ruskin, Pol. Econ. Art, i. 10. Laying up your wheat wisely in store-houses for the time of famine.
1890. Rlwys. Amer., 300. The supplies are … delivered at the General Storehouse.
b. attrib. and Comb.
1497. Naval Acc. Hen. VII. (1896), 240. The vtter Storhouse Dore in the seid Ship.
1540. Palsgr., Acolastus, II. iv. M iv b. Now that I am become the storer or storehouse keper of this puissant lorde.
1548. in Feuillerat, Revels Edw. VI. (1914), 40. ijo croked boltes ffor the store howse dore.
1809. in Orders in Council Nav. Service (1866), I. 257. Clerk and Storehouse Keeper. Ibid. (1816), 260. One Storehouse Labourer. Ibid. (1833), 190. The first and second classes of storehouse labourers, who are men charged with an important trust of great responsibility. Ibid. (1886), (1888), V. 125. We would recommend that Your Majesty may be graciously pleased to sanction the appointment of a Storehouseman (Civil rating) to that Ship … and to be assisted by a Yeoman of Storerooms.
2. transf. and fig. Often, a store or treasury from which something may be obtained in plenty; an abundant source (of).
1578. Banister, Hist. Man, V. 72. The liuer, the shoppe or storehouse of bloud.
1589. Greene, Menaphon (Arb.), 68. Arcadie, storehouse of Nimphs, and nurserie of beautie.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. vi. 6. She … greatly ioyed merry tales to faine, Of which a store-house did with her remaine.
1671. Milton, P. R., II. 103. My heart hath been a store-house long of things And sayings laid up, portending strange events.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., II. x. § 2. Memory, which is as it were the Store-house of our Ideas.
1846. Wright, Ess. Mid. Ages, I. v. 203. The history … published by Geoffrey of Monmouth opened a rich storehouse of fiction for the poets who followed.
1856. Sir B. Brodie, Psychol. Inq., I. ii. 59. The brain … is the store-house of past sensations.
1881. Westcott & Hort, Grk. Test., Introd. § 5. Books that are professedly storehouses of information.
