lazar house
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Noun
[edit]lazar house (plural lazar houses)
- (archaic) Synonym of leprosery: A building used to house lepers, usually in permanent quarantine from the rest of society.
- 15th c., William of Worcester, “The Rolle of Sencte Bartholemeweis Priorie” cited in William Barrett, The History and Antiquities of the City of Bristol, 1789, p. 429,[1]
- These bee alle the bookes ynne the ache Camberre & of the reste of the Lazar house bee cellis & beddis for the Lazars, beeynge manie in number […]
- 1667, John Milton, “Book XI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 477-482:
- […] Immediately a place
Before his eyes appeard, sad, noysom, dark,
A Lazar-house it seemd, wherein were laid
Numbers of all diseas’d, all maladies
Of gastly Spasm, or racking torture, qualmes
Of heart-sick Agonie, all feavorous kinds […]
- 1965, Richard Howard (translator), Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault (1961), New York: Random House, Chapter 1, “Stultifera Navis”,
- The lazar house of Nancy, which was among the largest in Europe, had only four inmates during the regency of Marie de Médicis.
- 15th c., William of Worcester, “The Rolle of Sencte Bartholemeweis Priorie” cited in William Barrett, The History and Antiquities of the City of Bristol, 1789, p. 429,[1]
- (archaic, figuratively) A hospital or lazaret for quarantining patients suffering highly infectious diseases.
- 1853, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter 33, in Ruth[2]:
- A portion of the Infirmary of the town was added to that already set apart for a fever-ward; the smitten were carried thither at once, whenever it was possible, in order to prevent the spread of infection; and on that lazar-house was concentrated all the medical skill and force of the place.