victualling house

noun

A commercial establishment at which victuals (food and beverages) are served; tavern; inn.

Meanings

nounvictualling house (plural victualling houses)

plural victualling houses

  1. historicalobsoleteA commercial establishment at which victuals (food and beverages) are served; tavern; inn.

    1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress, London: Nath. Ponder, Facsimile reproduction, London: Elliot Stock, 1875, Part 2, p. 183, Nor was there on all this Ground, so much as one Inn or Victualling-House, therein to refresh the feebler sort.

    3 more examples

    […] when Antiochus lay feasting at Chalcis after his marriage, and his souldiors betooke themselues to Riot, as it had beene in a time of great security: a good man of war might haue cut all their throates, euen as they were tipling in their victualing houses […]

    1617, Walter Raleigh, The History of the World, London: Walter Burre, Part 1, Book 5, Chapter 5, Section 8, p. 695

    This Sykes invited him to go to one Redgate’s, a Victualling-house near the Seven Dials, to play at Skettles […]

    1724, Daniel Defoe, The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard, pages 6–7

    1824, Laws of Harvard College, for the Use of Students, Cambridge, Massachusetts: University Press, Chapter VI. Misdemeanors and criminal offences, p. 15, (2.) Making or being present at any festive entertainment […] or going into any tavern or victualling house in Cambridge for the purpose of eating or drinking.

Cite this entry
APA

victualling house. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/victualling%20house

MLA

“victualling house.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/victualling%20house. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “victualling house,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/victualling%20house.

Source: victualling house on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.