A small spoon, usually of silver or silvered metal, of a size suitable for stirring tea or other beverage in a cup.
1686. Lond. Gaz., No. 2203/4. Three small gilt Tea Spoons. Ibid. (1704), No. 4055/4. 4 Spoons, and 5 Tea-Spoons.
1769. The Tea-spoon, in Gentl. Mag., XXXIX. 503–4.
| Happy tea spoon, which can hit | |
| Dr. Hill’s uneaquall’d wit! | |
| Patients young and patients old, | |
| Patients hot and patients cold, | |
| Patients tender, patients tough, | |
| A tea-spoon-full is just enough. |
1825. T. Hook, Sayings, Ser. II. Passion & Princ., i. Mr. Welsted … in his agitation knocked the tea-spoon out of his glass of negus.
1849. Dickens, Dav. Copp., lix. We have something in the shape of tea-spoons…. But they’re Britannia metal.
Hence Teaspoonful, as much as a tea-spoon will hold; in medical prescriptions taken as equal to 1 fluid-drachm.
1731. Mortimer, in Phil. Trans., XXXVII. 170. Not above a Tea Spoonful of water.
1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, II. 53. A tea-spoonful of the ashes.
1844. Emerson, Lect., Yng. American, Wks. (Bohn), II. 301. Agricultural chemistry … offering by means of a tea-spoonful of artificial guano, to turn a sandbank into corn.
1847. J. F. South, Housh. Surg. (1880), 27. Adding a teaspoonful of laudanum.
1904. Marie Corelli, God’s Gd. Man, viii. Two … teaspoonfuls of cream.
