English

Alternative forms

• vaulting-school

Noun

vaulting school ‎(plural vaulting schools)

1. Used other than as an idiom: see vaulting,‎ school. (A place where one learns to vault.)
   • 1903, Laurence Hutton, Literary Landmarks of Oxford, page 29:

     His three years there were spent chiefly in the study of music, in the Vaulting-school, in dancing; and in quarrelling, studiously, with the authorities, upon all sorts of subjects.

   • 1923, Edward Thurlow Leeds, Herbert Edward Salter, Percy Manning, Surveys and Tokens: A Survey of Oxford in 1772, page 120:

     Prince Charles must have visited the vaulting school during his stay in Oxford from the end of November 1642 to July 1643, [...]

   • 1989 May 23, Alan Fredman, "Eagles Roughed Up A Bit," St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

     He's going to go to a vaulting school at the University of Kansas this summer, Walls said. That should help.

   • 1994 March 2, Fred Jeter, "Knights climbing in vault: Gilstrap, Hauser finish 2-3 in region," Richmond Times:

     Despite no adequate practice facilities Dale has quietly emerged as the area's best vaulting school.

   • 2005 January 13, Eli Saslow, "Chesapeake Finds Gold in the Vault; Team Led Comeback of ‘Unique’ Event," Washington Post:

     With a total of 10 pole vaulters Chesapeake might also be the state's biggest vaulting school helping to reinvigorate a sport said to be on its deathbed as recently as two years ago.

2. (archaic, slang) A brothel.
   • 1684, Nathaniel Thompson, "Oates's Bug—Bug—Boarding-School, at Camberwell" in A choice collection of 120 loyal songs, London:

     Invite 'em to my Vaulting School,

     The Saints for freedom tell;

     How they may live without Controul,

     With me at Camberwell.

     There all Provision shall be made

     To entertain the best,

     Old Mother Creswel of our Trade,

     For to rub down our Guests;

     Three hundred of the briskest Dames,

     In Park or Field e're fell:

     Whose Amorous Eyes shall charm the flames

     O'th' Saints at Camberwell.

   • 1691, Richard Ames, The folly of love, or, An essay upon satyr against woman:

     And some young Cracks, who waiting never fail,

     Commence Grave Bauds and keep a Vaulting School,

     Where Callow Youths their Health and Mony fool.

   • 1707, Thomas Brown, "Moll Quarles's Answer to Mother Creswell of Famous Memory" in The Second Volume of the Works of Mr. Tho. Brown, containing Letters from the Dead to the Living both Serious and Comical, part three, page 184:

     At leaſt five Hundred of theſe reforming Vultures are daily plundering our Pockets, and ranſacking our Houſes, leaving me ſometimes not one pair of Tractable Buttocks in my Vaulting-School to provide for my Family, or earn me ſo much as a Pudding for my next Sundays Dinner : [...]

   • 2003, M. S. Morton and M. Morton, The Lover's Tongue: A Merry Romp Through the Language of Love and Sex, Insomniac Press, ISBN 9781894663519, p. 221:

     In the late sixteenth century, the word nunnery also came to mean brothel. . . . Around the same time, the synonymous leaping-house also emerged, which anticipated the eighteenth-century terms vaulting-school and pushing-school, all implying vigorous acts of sex.