stound

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -uːnd
• IPA: /staʊnd/, X-SAMPA: /staUnd/
• Rhymes: -aʊnd

Etymology 1

From Middle English stond, stounde, stound (“hour, time, season, moment”), from Old English stund (“a period of time, while, hour, occasion”), from Proto-Germanic *stundō (“point in time, hour”), from Proto-Indo-European *stut- (“prop”), from Proto-Indo-European *stā-, *sth- (“to stand”). Cognate with Dutch stond (“hour, time, moment”), German Stunde (“hour”), Danish and Swedish stund (“time, while”). Compare Middle English stunden (“to linger, stay, remain for a while”), Icelandic stunda (“to frequent, pursue”). Related to stand.

Alternative forms

• stund
• stoind, stoond, stoon, stoun, stuind (Scotland)

Noun

stound (plural stounds)

1. (chronology, obsolete) An hour.
   • 1765, Percy's Reliques, The King and the Tanner of Tamworth (original license: 1564):

     What booth wilt thou have? our king reply'd / Now tell me in this stound

2. (obsolete) A tide, season.
3. (archaic or dialectal) A time, length of time, hour, while.
   • 1801, Walter Scott, The Talisman:

     He lay and slept, and swet a stound, / And became whole and sound.

4. (archaic or dialectal) A brief span of time, moment, instant.

   Listen to me a little stound

5. A moment or instance of urgency; exigence.
6. (dialectal) A sharp or sudden pain; a shock, an attack.
   • 1857, Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture:

     No wonder that they cried unto the Lord, and felt a stound of despair shake their courage

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.viii:

     ere the point arriued, where it ought, / That seuen-fold shield, which he from Guyon brought / He cast betwene to ward the bitter stound [...].

7. A fit, an episode or sudden outburst of emotion; a rush.
   • 1895, Mansie Wauch, The Life of Mansie Wauch: tailor in Dalkeith:

     [...] and run away with him, almost whether he will or not, in a stound of unbearable love!

Derived terms

• ill stound
• in a stound
• stoundmeal
• umbestound
• umstound
• upon a stound

Verb

stound (third-person singular simple present stounds, present participle stounding, simple past and past participle stounded)

1. (obsolete or dialectal, intransitive) To hurt, pain, smart.
   • 1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, Act IV, Scene II, verses 93-95

     Your wrath, weak boy ? Tremble at mine unless

     Retraction follow close upon the heels

     Of that late stounding insult […]

2. (obsolete or dialectal, intransitive) To be in pain or sorrow, mourn.
3. (obsolete or dialectal, intransitive) To long or pine after, desire.
   • 1823, Edward Moor, Suffolk words and phrases: or, An attempt to collect the lingual localisms of that county:

     Recently weaned children "stound after the breast."

Etymology 2

From Middle English stunden (“to linger, stay, remain for a while”). Cognate with Icelandic stunda (“to frequent, pursue”). More at stand.

Verb

stound (third-person singular simple present stounds, present participle stounding, simple past and past participle stounded)

1. (intransitive, obsolete) To stand still; stop.
2. (intransitive, UK dialectal) To stop to listen; pause.

Noun

stound (plural stounds)

1. (UK dialectal) A stand; a stop.

Etymology 3

Middle English stound, stonde, stoonde, ston, from Old English stond (“a stand”). Compare stand.

Noun

stound (plural stounds)

1. A receptacle for holding small beer.

Anagrams

• donuts
• stunod