alebench

English

Alternative forms

• ale bench, ale-bench

Etymology

From ale +‎ bench.

Noun

alebench (plural alebenches)

1. (historical) A bench at the front of an alehouse or inn where drinkers can sit.
   • 1600, [Michael Drayton, Richard Hathwaye, Anthony Munday, Robert Wilson], The First Part of the True and Honorable Historie, of the Life of Sir John Old-castle, the Good Lord Cobham. […], London: […] [V[alentine] S[immes]] for Thomas Pauier, […], →OCLC, signature B, recto:

     VVhen the vulgar ſort / Sit on their Ale-bench, vvith their cups and kannes, / Matters of ſtate be not their common talke, / Nor pure religion by their lips prophande.

   • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC; reprinted in The Pilgrim’s Progress (The Noel Douglas Replicas), London: Noel Douglas, […], 1928, →OCLC:

     This man is for any company, and for any talk: as he talketh now with you, so will he talk when he is on the alebench ; and the more drink he hath in his crown, the more of these things he hath in his mouth.

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 302:

     The real facts would have been sufficient to excite uneasiness and indignation : but the real facts were lost amidst a. crowd of wild rumours which flew without ceasing from coffeehouse to coffeehouse and from alebench to alebench, and became more wonderful and terrible at every stage of the progress.

   • 1973, F. G. Emmison, Elizabethan Life: Morals and the Church Courts, page 70:

     He, with others more (sitting upon their alebench and greatly abusing themselves at one Mother Larkinge's house), took upon him and was called by the name of Mr. Parson, another taking upon him and was called by the name of churchwarden, another by the name of a sworn man, another by the name of the honest men of the parish, and another by the name of an apparitor whose name was Thomas England; thus sitting, abusing themselves like drunken sots.