The name of the abbey on the north bank of the Thames at London, used attrib., esp. with reference to Westminster Hall as a court of justice, to the assembly of divines held in 1643, or to St. Peter’s School.
1549. Latimer, 1st Serm. bef. Edw. VI. (Arb.), 28. Thus thys bargayne became a westminster matter; the lawyers gote twyse the valure of the horse.
a. 1614. Timme, Silver Watch-bell, vii. (1634), 140. If his neighbor do damnifie him but the value of two pence, he will prouide a conserue of Westminster-hal wormewood for him out of hand.
1671. (title) Westminster Drollery. Or a choice Collection of the Newest Songs & Poems.
1691. Hist. Rel. Late Presbyt. Gen. Assembly, 12. The Minister of Abbots-Hall was accused for neglecting the Catechism of the Westminster Divines.
1693. Acc. Establ. Presbyt. Govt. Scot., 43. Such a vast number of Propositions as are contained in the Westminster Confession.
1698. Concubinage Disprov’d, 5. It does not appear by anything our Author says, that his Marriage with Mary Tomkins was any other than Congressus Furtivus, a Westminster Wedding.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Westminster-Wedding, a Whore and a Rogue Married together.
1719. Collect. Conf. Faith Ch. Scot., I. Pref. p. xi. Every body knows in what unhappy distracted Times, the Westminster Assembly met and compos’d that Confession of Faith.
1720. Pref. to Addit. Westminster Confession, 182. Other catechisms, which … are for no other valuable quality any ways comparable to the Westminster Catechisms.
1747. Mrs. Glasse, Cookery, ix. 79. A Westminster-Fool. Take a Penny-loaf, cut it into thin Slices, wet them with Sack…: take a Quart of Cream, beat up six Eggs … [etc.].
1837. Dickens, Pickw., xxxv. The waiters, from their costume, might be mistaken for Westminster boys.
1843. Hetherington (title), History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines.
1856. Sara T. L. Robinson, Kansas (ed. 3), 38–9. The old Westminster catechism allows works of necessity and mercy to be done on the Sabbath day.
1880. Goldw. Smith, Cowper, i. 13. The Nonsense Club, consisting of seven Westminster men who dined together every Thursday.
b. ellipt. A present or former pupil at Westminster School.
1690–1. Smalridge, in Epist. Corr. Atterbury (1783), I. 17. I suppose you expect to do little good but upon the Westminsters.
1880. Goldw. Smith, Cowper, i. 13. The set was strictly confined to Westminsters. Gray and Mason, being Etonians, were objects of its literary hostility, and butts of its satire.
1895. Spectator, 23 Nov., 729. The Busby Trust, managed by thirteen trustees, who must be old Westminsters.
Hence Westminsterism, the principles characteristic of the Westminster Assembly of 1643.
1884. Calderwood, in U. P. Mag., July, 366. Several things had occasioned opposition to the admission of the Cumberland Church, such as these—its deliberate alteration of the Westminster Confession, its avowed antagonism to what was often named ‘Westminsterism.’
