lazar house

plural lazar houses · alternative lazar-house · alternative lazarhouse

1. archaicSynonym of leprosery: A building used to house lepers, usually in permanent quarantine from the rest of society.

   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.

   2 more examples

   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, 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 […]

   […] 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 […]

   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

   Synonyms: leprosery

2. archaicfigurativelyA hospital or lazaret for quarantining patients suffering highly infectious diseases.

   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.

   1853, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter 33, in Ruth