A container for spitting into, especially one used to collect saliva or chewing tobacco residue.
From Portuguese cuspideira or Spanish escupidor, both derived from Latin conspuere meaning 'to spit.' The word entered English in the 1800s during this era of common spitting culture.
Cuspidors were so common in Victorian offices and saloons that Mark Twain complained about having to dodge their 'splashes'—they became symbols of a less sanitary, pre-antibiotics era!
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