[SPELLING vbl. sb.2] A book designed to teach spelling.
1677. T. Lye (title), New Spelling Book.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 296, ¶ 1. By the Assistance of a Spelling-Book it’s legible.
1714. Mandeville, Fab. Bees (1733), I. 332. Buried alive in their hall under a great heap of primers and spelling-books.
c. 1775. Johnson, in Boswell (Oxf. ed.), I. 30. Tom Brown … published a spelling-book, and dedicated it to the Universe.
1828. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. III. (1863), 7. Superintending the different exercises of the needle, the spelling-book, and the slate.
1852. C. W. Hoskyns, Talpa, xx. (1854), 177. For Nature is a schoolmaster that teaches without spelling-books.
attrib. 1771. Luckombe, Hist. Print., 270. [The hyphen] has given employment … to a number of Spelling-Book-Authors.
1835. Macaulay, in Trevelyan, Compet. Wallah (1864), 421. They designate the education which their opponents recommend as a mere spelling-book education.
