spital (plural spitals)

1. (historical) A charitable house to receive and care for sick people, later distinguished from a hospital as being especially for those of a low class or meagre financial means.
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 54573970 ↗, partition II, section 1, member 3:

     Put up a supplication to him in the name of a thousand orphans, an hospital, a spital, a prison, as he goes by, they cry out to him for aid, ride on, surdo narras, he cares not {{...}