The second sort of them are called turnspits, whose office is not unknown to any. ❋ Thomas Malory Jean Froissart (N/A)
As you know, they used to have in England little dogs called turnspits, trained to turn a wheel for this purpose. ❋ George Frisbie Hoar (1865)
'turnspits' which were introduced into this country by Prince Albert. ❋ E. Gordon Browne (N/A)
He is more suited, sir knight, to dine with your turnspits. ' ❋ Henry Gilbert (N/A)
Others again describe him as "a cooking animal," but while dogs can act as turnspits, and monkeys can roast chestnuts, he cannot claim this lofty epithet as peculiarly his own; besides, some savages have been found so degraded as to be unacquainted with the use of fire. ❋ Emily Mayer Higgins (N/A)
"No, madame," I said, without appearing irritated; "in Paris, such an excuse as that is quite inadmissible, and since you associate with turnspits, pray ask your cooks, and they will tell you." ❋ Various (N/A)
Courtiers, footmen, lackeys, turnspits even, were forever sending him off on ridiculous errands. ❋ Henry Beston (1928)
And as these are only reserved for this purpose, so in many places our mastiffs (beside the use which tinkers have of them in carrying their heavy budgets) are made to draw water in great wheels out of deep wells, going much like unto those which are framed for our turnspits, as is to be seen at Roiston, where this feat is often practised. ❋ Unknown (1909)
The loins of one animal were cooking on turnspits and a big pot of beef, onions and potatoes boiling over the fire when ❋ Irving Bacheller (1904)
There was the click of the turnspits, the crash of stewpans, the noises of glass and silver preparing for the dinner. ❋ Unknown (1902)
Financially, so low were his affairs that even the turnspits in the palace were clamouring for their unpaid wages. ❋ Gower, Ronald Sutherland, Lord, 1845-1916 (1893)
One of the king's turnspits was a member of the house of commons, and paid £5 a year to a humble deputy, and no fewer than twenty-three separate tables were kept up, eleven for the nurses. ❋ William Hunt (1886)
She wondered as she heard of the fine-drawn distinctions among that rabble of servants, the upper ranks of whom were supplied by the small gentry -- of servants who waited upon servants, and again other servants who waited on those, down to that lowest stratum of kitchen sluts and turnspits, who actually made their own beds and scraped their own trenchers. ❋ Unknown (1875)
The under servants -- rank and file -- from housemaids to turnspits, slept in a huge barrack adjoining the stables, built in Elizabeth's reign to accommodate the lower grade of a nobleman's household. ❋ Unknown (1875)
A company of turnspits were assembled in the Abbey Church of Bath, where they remained very quietly. ❋ R. Lee (1865)
There are instances of hedgehogs performing the office of turnspits in a kitchen; and, from the facility with which they accommodate themselves to all sorts of food, they are easily kept. ❋ R. Lee (1865)
-- They begin, aided by the rabble of the town and of its suburbs, peasants enemies of the octroi, vagabonds opposed to order of any kind, porters and watermen armed with scythes, turnspits and clubs, by exciting seven or eight riots. ❋ Hippolyte Taine (1860)
-- During the night between the 13th and 14th of May, the baker's shops and the wine shops are pillaged; "men of the vilest class, armed with guns, pikes, and turnspits, make people open their doors and give them something to eat and drink, as well as money and arms." ❋ Hippolyte Taine (1860)
