sty
A pen or enclosure for swine.
Noun
- A pen or enclosure for swine.
- A messy, dirty or debauched place.
- To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty. - 1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine...
Origin
From Middle English sty, from Old English stī, stiġ (“sty, pen, a wooden enclosure; hall”, chiefly in compounds). Cognate with German Stiege (“wooden crate”), dialectal German Steige (“hen-coop”), Danish sti (“sty, enclosure for swine, sheep, hens, etc.”), Swedish stia (“sty for pigs, geese, etc.”), Norwegian sti (“flock of sheep”), Icelandic stía (“a kennel”).
Forms
Derived
hogsty steward styful styless stylike swinesty throw an ant into a sty
Noun UK, dialectal
- A ladder.
Origin
From Middle English stien, stiȝen, stighen, from Old English stīgan (“to go; ascend, mount”), from Proto-West Germanic *stīgan, from Proto-Germanic *stīganą, from Proto-Indo-European *steygʰ-. Cognate with Dutch stijgen, German steigen, Danish stige, Norwegian Bokmål stige, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish stiga, Old Norse stíga.
Forms
Noun medicine, pathology
- An inflammation of the eyelid.
Origin
From Middle English styanye, mistaken as "sty on eye" yet composed of Old English stīġend (“sty”, literally “riser”), agent noun from stīgan (“to rise”) + Middle English yë (“eye”).
Forms
Verb Entry 4
- To place in, or as if in, a sty.
- and here you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me The rest o' the island - 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […]...
- To live in a sty, or any messy or dirty place.
Forms
Verb obsolete
- To ascend, rise up, climb.
- The beast impatient of his smarting wound, / And of so fierce and forcible despight, / Thought with his wings to stye aboue the ground [...]. - 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […],...
- From this lower tract he dared to stie up to the clowdes. - 1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “Muiopotmos, or The Fate of the Butterflie”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […]...
- Led along, as some Creatures are, by the Noses, and voluntarily hood-winked; or like seeled Doves, sty up, you know not whither, nor how far. - 1621, Richard Montague, Diatribae upon the first part of the late History...