spit-poison

English

Etymology

spit +‎ poison

Noun

spit-poison (plural spit-poisons)

1. (obsolete, derogatory) A malicious person.
   • a. 1716, Robert South, “Posthumous Sermon L”, in Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions, volume 2, London: Reeves & Turner, published 1877, page 424:

     […] a vile person comes to be understood, and then to be abhorred, and to be pointed at as he passes by with such kind of elogies as these; "There goes a person for whom no one breathing was ever the better, but many ruined, blasted, and undone; the scourge of society, a spit-poison, a viper, and to be abandoned and shunned by all companies, like a mortal infection […] "