ale-drapery en · NOUN
Etymology
From ale-draper + -y.
Meanings
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(obsolete) The running of an alehouse.
and fare at all tymes as harde as poor Mopos Cut did with his maisters contreyman in Shorditch, till, by the force of his hinder heeles, he vtterly vndid two milch maydens that had set vp a shoppe of Ale-drapery.
1592, H. Chettle, Kind-harts Dreames, page 20:An ale-house keeper would “with a grave air complain that trade was not sufficiently encouraged, when he meant the trade of ale drapery and smoking tobacco'.”
2002, Richard Grassby, The Business Community of Seventeenth-Century England, page 226: