alehouse
nounEtymology From Middle English alehous, alehuse from Old English ealuhūs. By surface analysis, ale + house.
1
A business, such as an inn or tavern, where ale is sold; (loosely) any beerhouse.
- Near-synonyms: (broadly synonymous) beerhouse, beer parlour, beer bar, pub, saloon; (overlapping) brewpub
- Find him in a pulpit but twiſe in the yeare, And Ile find him fortie times in the ale-houſe taſting ſtrong beare.1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act I:
2 more examples
- But go to—carry thy roisterers elsewhere—to the alehouse if they list, and there are crowns to pay your charges—make out the day’s madness without doing more mischief, and be wise men to-morrow—and hereafter learn to serve a good cause better than by acting like ruffians.1820, [Walter Scott], chapter XV, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 326:
- Mention has been already made more than once, of a certain Dragon who swung and creaked complainingly before the village ale-house door.1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter 3, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC, page 19:
- Derived terms
- alehouse keeper, hedge alehouse