A glossary of Tudor and Stuart words, especially from the dramatists

by Walter W. Skeat

stire, styre, to guide, direct. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 7; ii. 5. 2. OE. stȳran, to direct, steer. See Dict. (s.v. Steer).

stirp, a stem, stock, family. Bacon, Essay 14, § 1. L. stirps, a stem.

stitch, a space between two double furrows in ploughed land; a ridge. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xviii. 495; Odyssey, viii. 171. In the latter passage, a stitch’s length may mean a furrow’s length or furlong. This word is in prov. use in various parts of England for a narrow ridge of land, as much land as lies between two furrows; a balk or portion of grass-land in an arable field; see EDD. (s.v. Stitch, sb.¹ 8 and 9).

stitch, a sudden cramp; hence, a contortion, a grimace. Beaumont and Fl., Captain, ii. 2 (Frederick).

stitchel, a troublesome fellow; a term of reproach. Lady Alimony, v. 3. 13 (Wife). A Linc. word for a troublesome child, see EDD. (s.v. Stetchel).

stithy, an anvil, Hamlet, iii. 2. 80 (some edd. have stith); to forge, ‘The forge that stithied Mars his helm’, Tr. and Cr. iv. 5. 255. In prov. use (EDD.). ME. stith, an anvil (Chaucer, C. T. A. 2026). Icel. steði. See [stedy].

stoccata, a thrust, in fencing. Romeo, iii. i. 77; stoccado, Merry Wives, ii. 1. 234; stockado, Marston, Sat. i. 132. Ital. stoccata, a thrust, a stoccado given with a stócco (a tuck or short-arming sword); see Florio; Span. estocáda, a thrust with a weapon, a stab (Stevens).

stock, to hit with the point of a sword; ‘A chevalier would stock a needle’s point Three times together’, Fletcher, Love’s Cure, iii. 4 (Alvarez); a thrust in fencing, Marston, Malcontent, ii. 2 (Malevole); Antonio, Pt. II, i. 2 (Matzagente). F. estoc, ‘a rapier or tuck, also, a thrust; coup d’estoc, a thrust, stockado, stab’ (Cotgr.). See [stuck].

stock, nether-stock or stocking. Greene, Description of Chaucer, 3 (ed. Dyce, p. 320). In prov. use in Yorks. and Norfolk (see EDD., s.v. Stock, 18).

stock-fish, dried haddock or cod; ‘Haddockes or hakes indurate and dryed with coulde, and beaten with clubbes or stockes, by reason whereof the Germayns caule them stockefyshe’, R. Eden, Works (ed. Arber, p. 303); Temp. iii. 2. 79; Meas. iii. 2. 116. The reason for the name is uncertain; Koolman gives the Low G. form as stok-fisk, and thinks they were so called because dried upon stocks or poles in the sun.