Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the sweating tub used for the cure of venereal disease; thus powdered adj., (temporarily) cured after using the tub.

1599		Shakespeare Henry V II i: From the powdering-tub of infamy Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid’s kind, Doll Tearsheet she by name.
1603		Shakespeare Measure for Measure III ii: pom.: She hath eaten up all her beef, and she herself is in the tub [...] lucio: It must be so: ever your fresh whore and your powdered bawd.
1611		Chapman May-Day II v: Health? ’Sfoot, how mean you that? D’ye think I came lately out o’ th’ powdering tub?
1621		Fletcher Island Princess V iii: Here flyes a poudring-tub, the meat ready roasted, and there a barrel pissing vinegar.
1647		New Merry Letany 2: From the powd’ring Tub of Justice Long [...] Libera nos.
1653		Urquhart (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk II 224: Their faces did glister like the key-hole of a powdering tub.
1660		‘Eugenius Theodidactus’ 3: [B]eware their Clutches, lest they souce thee in Thetis poudering tub to make meat for Sharks and Shaddocks.
1665		Head Eng. Rogue I 330: I failed not to season him in one of the Cities Powdering-Tubs.
1672		Wycherley Love in a Wood III i: Do you intend to change them, then, to Bridewell, or Longs powdering-Tub.
1699		N. Ward London Spy V 114: If he be as Rotton as a Town Stallion, who has been twenty times in the Powdering-Tub.
1706		Fifteen Comforts of Cuckoldom 5: Meantime a Rubbers she with some had play’d, / And in the Powd’ring Tub was quickly laid.
1714		A. Smith Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 240: He was very seldom out of the Powdering-Tub.
1723		‘Whipping-Tom’ Democritus III 28: I shall not Rebuke you, but only wish the Lard may Love you, and the Lard may souse you, and Pickle you in the Powdering Tub of Repentance.
1732		Harlot’s Progress 6: As I from Powdering-Tub was hopping / Sometimes a Running, sometimes Stopping.
1741		Secret Hist. of Betty Ireland (9 edn) 27: His Worship [...] soon found he had met with a hotter Reception than he expected [and] was necessitated to go into the Powdering-Tub.
1764		K. O’Hara Midas III ii: You’re cajol’d by a beggarly scrub / Who will rot in a powdering tub.
c.1775		Only True and Exact Calendar [title page] Miss Rowe [...] has been two or three Times in the Pickling Tub.
c.1780		Correct List of the Sporting Ladies [broadsheet] She has lately been in the pickling tub, but now is as sound as a trout.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Pickle [...] in the pickling tub, in a salivation. [Ibid.] Powdering tub. The same as pickling tub.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

2. the hospital for sexual diseases, near Kingsland, London.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Powdring-Tub, the Pocky Hospital at Kingsland near London.
1704		Comical Observer 1 7 Nov. Kingsland and other Powdering Tubs of Affliction.

3. (UK Und.) shoes or boots.

1836		‘Ax My Eye’ in New Cockalorum Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) II 25: I sports a hellish swellish / Coat [...] and a slashing dashing, / Stunning pair o’ pickling tubs.
1841		‘Ax My Eye’ Dublin Comic Songster 101: [as 1836].
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.