saw-pit

Noun

saw-pit (plural saw-pits)

1. Alternative form of sawpit.
   • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, “The Merry VViues of VVindsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene iv], page 56, column 1:

     [V]pon a ſodaine, / As Falſtaffe, ſhe, and I, are newly met, / Let them [children dressed like "urchins, ouphes and fairies"] from forth a ſaw-pit ruſh at once / With ſome diffuſed ſong: Vpon their ſight / We two, in great amazedneſſe will flye: […]

   • 1672, John Lacy, The Old Troop: Or, Monsieur Raggou. As It was Acted at the Theatre-Royal, London: Printed for William Crook and Thomas Dring, at the Green Dragon without Temple-Bar, and at the White-Lyon next Chancery-Lane end in Fleetstreet, OCLC 228722289, Act I, scene i, page 4:

     'Twas in a Saw-pit then: yet when the Armies meet (I'l ſay that for him) he will draw up as confidently, as if he would take a General by the Beard; and he will as confidently ride out of the Army before the Battel joyns: and if any man ask him whither he goes, he ſays he is ſent for Orders, ſo you hear of him no more; and the next day you find him as ſure in a Saw-pit.

   • 1701 July, “III. Chartham News: Or A Brief Relation of Some Strange Bones There Lately Digged Up, in Some Grounds of Mr John Somner’s in Canterbury”, in Philosophical Transactions. Giving Some Account of the Present Undertakings, Studies and Labours of the Ingenious, in Many Considerable Parts of the World, volume XXII, number 272, London: Printed for S. Smith and B. Walford, printers t the Royal Society, at the Prince's Arms in St Paul's Church-yard, published 1702, OCLC 630046584, page 892:

     By the way, it is obſerved that the nature of the Soil here and there, is ſuch, ſo looſe, ſupple, rotten and ſandy, that meerly of itſelf, it is apt to ſink and fall in; as was lately experienced by a Saw-pit, digg'd hard by, which after a little time by the Earths giving way on each ſide of it, fell in, and fill'd up itſelf.

   • 1719 April 25, [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who Lived Eight and Twenty Years, All Alone in an Un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River Oroonoque; having been Cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein All the Men Perished but Himself. With an Account how He was at Last as Strangely Deliver’d by Pyrates, London: Printed by W[illiam] Taylor at the Ship in Pater-Noster-Row, OCLC 15864594; 3rd edition, London: Printed by W[illiam] Taylor at the Ship in Pater-Noster-Row, 1719, OCLC 838630407, page 135:

     […] I was full two and forty Days making me a Board for a long Shelf, which I wanted in my Cave; whereas two Sawyers with their Tools, and a Saw-Pit, would have cut ſix of them out of the ſame Tree in half a Day.

Anagrams

• pitsaw