saw-pit

English

Noun

saw-pit (plural saw-pits)

1. Alternative form of sawpit.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv], page 56, column 1:

     ...vpon a ſodaine,
     As Falſtaffe, ſhe, and I, are newly met,
     Let them [children dressed like "urchins, ouphes and fairies"] from forth a ſaw-pit ruſh at once
     With ſome diffuſed ſong: Vpon their ſight
     We two, in great amazedneſſe will flye: […]

   • 1672, John Lacy, The Old Troop: Or, Monsieur Raggou. As It was Acted at the Theatre-Royal, London: Printed for William Crook and Thomas Dring, at the Green Dragon without Temple-Bar, and at the White-Lyon next Chancery-Lane end in Fleetstreet, →OCLC, act I, scene i, page 4:

     'Twas in a Saw-pit then: yet when the Armies meet (I'l ſay that for him) he will draw up as confidently, as if he would take a General by the Beard; and he will as confidently ride out of the Army before the Battel joyns: and if any man ask him whither he goes, he ſays he is ſent for Orders, ſo you hear of him no more; and the next day you find him as ſure in a Saw-pit.

   • 1701 July, “III. Chartham News: Or A Brief Relation of Some Strange Bones There Lately Digged Up, in Some Grounds of Mr John Somner’s in Canterbury”, in Philosophical Transactions. Giving Some Account of the Present Undertakings, Studies and Labours of the Ingenious, in Many Considerable Parts of the World, volume XXII, number 272, London: Printed for S. Smith and B. Walford, printers t the Royal Society, at the Prince's Arms in St Paul's Church-yard, published 1702, →OCLC, page 892:

     By the way, it is obſerved that the nature of the Soil here and there, is ſuch, ſo looſe, ſupple, rotten and ſandy, that meerly of itſelf, it is apt to ſink and fall in; as was lately experienced by a Saw-pit, digg'd hard by, which after a little time by the Earths giving way on each ſide of it, fell in, and fill'd up itſelf.

   • 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 135:

     […] I was full two and forty Days making me a Board for a long Shelf, which I wanted in my Cave; whereas two Sawyers with their Tools, and a Saw-Pit, would have cut ſix of them out of the ſame Tree in half a Day.

Anagrams

• pitsaw