Alexander Dyce, A General Glossary to Shakespeare's Works

scald “such chickens as you are—She's e'en setting on water to,” TIMON OF ATHENS, ii. 2. 72. “Randle Holme, in his Academy of Arms and Blazon, B. iii. ch. ii. p. 441, has the following passage: ‘He beareth Argent, a Doctor's tub (otherwise called a Cleansing Tub), Sable, Hooped, Or. In this pockifyed, and such diseased persons, are for a certain time put into, not to boyl up to an heighth, but to parboil,’ etc.” (STEEVENS) . “It was anciently the practice, and in inns perhaps still continues, to scald off the feathers of poultry instead of plucking them. Chaucer hath referred to it in his Romaunt of the Rose, 6820, ‘Without scalding they hem pulle’” (HENLEY) ; and see tub, etc.