Forms: 6 sollage, 7 sulledge, 7–8 suillage, 8 sulli(d)ge, swillage, 7– sullage. [Of uncertain origin. ? a. AF. *souillage, *soullage, *suillage, f. souiller SOIL v.1, SULLY v.: see -AGE. The synonymous SOILAGE is perhaps due to a variant *soillage. In the 17th and 18th cent. the spelling was influenced by SULLY: see SULLIAGE.]
1. Filth, refuse, esp. such as is carried off by drains from a house, farmyard, or the like; sewage.
1553. in Vicary’s Anat. (1888), App. iii. 176. To caraye awaye the Sollage of the Clensinge of the saide Stretes.
1609. in Sussex Archæol. Coll. (1867), XIX. 199. Annoying the Bowrne wth the sulledge of his hoggs by a dyke.
1624. Wotton, Elem. Archit. (1672), 18. Under-conducts and Conveyances, for the Suillage of the House.
1748. Dodsley, Preceptor (1763), I. 18. The Apertures … are either Doors … or conduits for the Suillage.
1750. W. Ellis, Mod. Husbandm., I. I. 39 (E.D.S.). If … highway sullidge and dung are mixed together.
1879. Flor. Nightingale, in Jrnl. Indian Assoc. Art Educ., Oct. The people themselves feel the misery of having no channels to remove sullage away clear from every habitation.
† 2. fig. Filth, filthiness, defilement, pollution.
1641. S. Hinde, in W. Hinde, J. Bruen, To Rdr. Free from the sullage of Envie, and detraction.
1673. R. Allestree, Ladies Calling, II. i. § 7. 148. The lightest act of dalliance leaves somthing of stain and sullage behind it.
1697. Evelyn, Numismata, ix. 309. The Soul contracts no sullage from the deformity of the Body.
3. The silt washed down and deposited by a stream or flood.
1691. T. H[ale], Acc. New Invent., p. lxi. Such Shelfes arising in our River from the Gravel and Sullage that are wash’d into it.
1725. Henley, trans. Montfaucon’s Antiq. Italy (ed. 2), 28. Several Strata of this Kind were form’d by the Suillage of Rivers and Torrents, to its present Height.
1733. W. Ellis, Chiltern & Vale Farm., 236. Sullidge which the Waters leaves on the Ground.
1755. Gentl. Mag., XXV. 396. The swillage of rivers.
1800. W. Chapman, Witham & Welland, 62. The bottom was found quite hard, and without sullage, from the Grand Sluice to Fishtoft-jetties.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., 665.
4. Founding. Metal scoria or slag.
1843. Holtzapffel, Turning, I. 349. The metal is … free from the scoria or sullage, which sometimes renders the upper surface very rough.
5. Comb.: sullage-piece (see quot. 1875); sullage-pipe, a drain-pipe.
1852. Burn, Naval & Milit. Dict., II. 276/2. *Sullage piece, or dead head, masselotte.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2452/2. Sullage-piece,… a dead-head, or feeding-head. A piece of metal on a casting which occupies the ingate at which the metal entered the mold…. In this piece the sullage rises, hence its name.
1907. ‘J. Halsham,’ Lonewood Corner, 214. He reckons it’s better for a man to be on the top of a stack than down a *sullage-pipe.
