alehouse

See also: ale-house

English

Alternative forms

• ale-house

Etymology

From Middle English alehous, alehuse from Old English ealuhūs. By surface analysis, ale +‎ house.

Pronunciation

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

alehouse (plural alehouses)

1. A business, such as an inn or tavern, where ale is sold.

   Synonyms: beer parlour, beer bar, brewpub, pub, saloon

   • 1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], Act I:

     Find him in a pulpit but twiſe in the yeare,
     And Ile find him fortie times in the ale-houſe taſting ſtrong beare.

   • 1820, [Walter Scott], chapter XV, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 326:

     But go to—carry thy roisterers elsewhere—to the alehouse if they list, and there are crowns to pay your charges—make out the day’s madness without doing more mischief, and be wise men to-morrow—and hereafter learn to serve a good cause better than by acting like ruffians.

   • 1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter 3, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC, page 19:

     Mention has been already made more than once, of a certain Dragon who swung and creaked complainingly before the village ale-house door.

Derived terms

• alehouse keeper

 

Translations

beer parlour — see beer parlour

Middle English

Noun

alehouse

1. Alternative form of alehous

References

• “alehouse”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.