Also 7–8 spunge. [f. the vb.]
1. The act of living parasitically on others.
1693. Humours Town, 37. Another … is faine to live upon the Spunge the rest of his days.
1716. C’tess Cowper, Diary (1864), 105. Lady W. Powlett complains of Mademoiselle Schutz, and says she is so importunate and troublesome, and always upon the Spunge.
2. An act of wetting or wiping (off) with or as by means of a sponge. Also with advs.
1720. A. Hutcheson, Collect. Calcul. S. Sea Scheme, 138. Whether the Parliament … shall now take the Benefit of such a Spunge made by the Directors of the South-Sea Company.
1873. Tristram, Moab, xv. 285. For myself a sponge at that heat was quite enough.
1905. Daily Chron., 21 April, 4/5. The mildest form of the cold bath is the cold sponge down.
