Spoffle, verb. (colloquial).—To fuss; to bustle. Spoffish (or spoffy) = fussy; bustling; smart. Also spoffy, subs. = a busybody.
1836. Dickens, Sk. by Boz, 'Horatio Sparkins.' A little spoffish man with green spectacles. Ibid. (1838-40), Sketches, Tales, vii. He invariably spoke with astonishing rapidity; was smart, spoffish, and eight and twenty.
Spoffskins, subs. (common).—A
prostitute: see Tart.
Spoil, verb. (various).—In addition
to the sense (now accepted) given
by Grose ('to mar, to place obstacles
in the way') there are colloq.
usages as follows:—To spoil
for = to be eager for: as 'spoiling
for a fight,' and spoiling
to be invited; to spoil one's
shape = to be got with child;
to spoil one's mouth = to damage
the face. Also in sarcastic
combination, spoil-bread = a
baker; spoil-broth = a cook;
spoil-iron = a smith (Grose);
spoil-paper = a scribbler; spoil-pudding
= a long-winded preacher
(Grose); spoil-sport = an
unfriendly or dispirited associate
or intruder: hence to spoil sport
= (1) to dishearten, and (2) to
prevent; spoil-trade = an unscrupulous
competitor; spoil-temper
= an exacting superior.
1280. [Oliphant, New Eng., i. 427. All through the century [16th] new words formed like the spilbred of 1280 (not bread-spiller) were coming in.]
1597-8. Haughton, Woman will have her Will [Dodsley, Old Plays (1874), x. 537]. The rogue is waiting yet to spoil your sport.
1611. Holland [Davies, Scourge of Folly, 81]. My Satyre shall not touch such sacred things . . . As some Spoile-papers have dearly done of late.
1678. Cotton, Virgil Travestie [Works (1725), 74]. That I am half afraid lest he Should chance to spoil her Majesty.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, iv. xlvii. He spied his wife lying on the ground piteously weeping and howling. . . . 'He has spoiled me. I am undone.'
d. 1704. Brown, Works, ii. 97. The French king who had spoil'd the shape . . . of several mistresses . . . had a mind to do the same by me.
1821. Scott, Kenilworth, xxviii. Mike Lambourne was never a make-bate, or a spoil-sport, or the like.
1821. Egan, Life in London, II. iv. 'Hang you! . . . if you don't hold that are red rag of yours, I'll spoil your mouth.'
1864. Derby Day, 52. It will spoil sport to call in the bobbies.
1901. D. Telegraph, 6 Nov., 'Racing in the Fog.' Fog as a spoil-sport is less recurrent than snow and wind.
Spoke. To put a spoke in one's
wheel (or cart), verb. phr.
(old).—To do an ill turn. Occasionally
(by an unwarrantable
inversion) = to assist.
1661-91. Merry Drolleries [Ebsworth, 1875], 224. He . . . lookt to be made an emperor for't, But the Divel did set a spoke in his cart.
1689. God's Last Twenty-Nine Years Wonders [Walsh]. Both . . . bills were such spokes in their chariot-wheels that made them drive much slower.
1809. Malkin, Gil Blas [Routledge], 19. Rolando put a spoke in their wheel by representing that they ought at least to wait till the lady . . . could come in for her share of the amusement.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ix. There's a spoke in your wheel, you stuck-up little Duchess.
1872. Eliot, Middlemarch, xiii. It seems to me it would be a very poor sort of religion to put a spoke in his wheel by refusing to say you don't believe.
1898. Walsh, Lit. Curios., 1030. When solid wheels were used, the driver was provided with a pin or spoke, which he thrust into one of the three holes made to receive it, to skid the cart when it went down hill.
Spoke-box, subs. phr. (colloquial).—The
mouth.
1874. Siliad, 206. Do I, for this, his brows with wreaths adorn, And lubricate his spoke-box every morn.
