sty

English

Pronunciation

• IPA: /staɪ/
• Rhymes: -aɪ

Etymology 1

From Middle English sty, from Old English stī, stiġ (“sty, pen, a wooden enclosure; hall”, chiefly in compounds), from Proto-Germanic *stiją. Cognate with German Steige (“hen-coop”), Danish sti (“enclosure for swine, sheep, hens, etc.”), Swedish stia (“sty for pigs, geese, etc.”), Norwegian sti (“flock of sheep”), Icelandic stía (“a kennel”).

Noun

sty (plural sties)

1. A pen or enclosure for swine.
2. (figuratively) A messy, dirty or debauched place.
   • Milton

     To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.

Synonyms

• (enclosure for swine): pig pen, pigsty
• (messy or dirty place): hovel, pigsty

Translations

enclosure for swine

• Finnish: sikolätti (fi)
• French: porcherie (fr) f
• Latin: hara (la) f
• Latvian: cūkkūts (lv) f, cūku kūts (lv) f
• Macedonian: кочина (mk) (kóčina) f, свињарник (mk) (svínjarnik) m

• Maori: rāihe (mi)
• Portuguese: chiqueiro (pt) m
• Romanian: cocină (ro) f
• Russian: хлев (ru) (xl'ev) m, свинарник (ru) (svinárnik) m
• Serbo-Croatian: svinjac (sh) m
• Swedish: stia, svinstia

messy or dirty place

• Bulgarian: кочина (bg) (kochina)
• Finnish: läävä (fi), sikolätti (fi)
• Latvian: cūkkūts (lv) f, cūku kūts (lv) f
• Macedonian: кочина (mk) (kóčina) f, свињарник (mk) (svínjarnik) m

• Portuguese: chiqueiro (pt) m
• Russian: свинарник (ru) (svinárnik) m
• Serbo-Croatian: svinjac (sh) m
• Swedish: stia, svinstia

Verb

sty (third-person singular simple present sties, present participle stying, simple past and past participle stied)

1. To place in, or as if in, a sty.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

2. To live in a sty, or any messy or dirty place.

Etymology 2

Old English stīgan, from Old Norse stíga, from Proto-Germanic *stīganą, from Proto-Indo-European *steigʰ-. Cognate with Dutch stijgen, German steigen, Swedish stiga.

Alternative forms

• stee, stie

Verb

sty (third-person singular simple present sties, present participle stying, simple past and past participle stied)

1. (obsolete) To ascend, rise up, climb. [9th-17th c.]
   • 1395, John Wycliffe, Bible, Isaiah LIII:

     And he schal stie as a ȝerde bifor him, and as a roote fro þirsti lond.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.xi:

     The beast impatient of his smarting wound, / And of so fierce and forcible despight, / Thought with his wings to stye aboue the ground [...].

Derived terms

• styan
• stirrup

Translations

to rise up — see ascend

Noun

sty (plural sties)

1. (UK, dialectal) A ladder.

Translations

ladder — see ladder

Etymology 3

Probably a back-formation from styany, mistaken for "sty-on-eye" but correctly from Middle English styany, composed of styan ("sty"; from Old English stīġende, present participle of stīgan (“to rise”)) + y (“eye”).

Alternative forms

• stye

Noun

sty (plural sties)

1. (pathology) An inflammation of the eyelid.

Translations

inflammation — see stye