Note 174 — III

This was about the time of Henry VIII. In proof of the confusion which reigned on the subject in Shakespeare’s time, see his use of ‘spinster’ as—‘spinner’, the man spinning, Henry VIII, Act. i. Sc. 2; and I have no doubt that it is the same in Othello, Act i. Sc. 1. And a little later, in Howell’s Vocabulary, 1659, ‘spinner’ and ‘spinster’ are both referred to the male sex, and the barbarous ‘spinstress’ invented for the female.