spar

1) It can mean a roof rafter, as in Henry Best’s description of a thatcher at work.

1642 They … fasten the bottles [bundles] to the sparres, Elmswell. In many early Yorkshire references though it was a pole or piece of timber, typically fir imported from the Baltic, and under six inches in diameter: 1357 Item, pro v sperris emptis, ijs vjd, York

1409 pro sparres cum cariagio, Beverley

1463 2 c fyrsparres, Hull. Later, it was used of home-grown timber: 1614 twenty sparres of oake wood, value 20d.

dates 1357 1409 1463 1614 1642

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