Subject: Re: (urth) STEW
From: matthew.malthouse@guardian.co.uk
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 08:14:10 +0100

On 21/08/2003 17:23:16 Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:

>I will note, however, that the word "stew" is used in URTH (ch. 30,
>"Ceryx") as the common term for a public bath house.

From Middle English, stewen; to bathe in a steam bath.  Hence informal 
modern usage; to suffer with oppressive heat.  Thence also possibly to 
worry, be agitated.

By Early Modern English (c1400) stew as in bath-house had become 
synonymous with brothel, especially in the plural.  Also by derivation a 
prostitutue.  Even when not directly meant the term suggested squalour, 
poverty and crime as in London's c16 theatres being in the stews of 
Southwark and Shorditch.

Matthew

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