[ALE- 4.] A house where ale is retailed; hence, a tippling house.
a. 1000. Laws of Ethelb., Thorpe I. 292. On eala-huse.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 11. Untimeliche eten alehuse.
1303. R. Brunne, Handl. Synne, 5978. At þe alehous make þey marchaundye.
c. 1450. Knt. de la Tour, 44. His parisshenes gone forthe to the ale hous or to a taverne.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., III. ii. 12. Would I were in an Ale-house in London.
1670. Eachard, Contempt Clergy, 122. If upon Sunday the church doors be shut, the ale-houses will be open.
1787. Bentham, Def. Usury, xiii. 159. The stuff fit to make a prodigal of is to be found in every alehouse.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 295. The redcoats filled all the alehouses of Westminster.
b. attrib. (Cf. also ALE-KNIGHT.)
1553. T. Wilson, Rhet., 2 b. Scurrilitie or alehouse jestyng would bee thought odious.
1583. Golding, Calvin on Deut. li. 305. These Tauernhaunters or Alehouseknightes which counterfeit the preachers.
1601. Dent, Pathw. to Heaven, 248. You are … a drinker, a common ale-house-haunter.
1765. Tucker, Lt. of Nat., II. 528. Exercising the trade of a butcher, or an ale-house keeper.
1855. Tennyson, Maud, I. iv. ii. And Jack on his ale-house bench has as many lies as a Czar.
