Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame.
A relatively long, thin piece of wood, of any size.
I found several good sticks in the brush heap.
What do you call a boomerang that won't come back? A stick.
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The slightest effort made the patient cough. He would stand leaning on a stick and holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had passed it left him shaking.
A cudgel or truncheon (usually of wood, metal or plastic), especially one carried by police or guards.
As soon as the fight started, the guards came in swinging their sticks.
It is more than poor Philip is worth, with all his savings and his little sticks of furniture.
Any roughly cylindrical (or rectangular) unit of a substance.
Sealing wax is available as a cylindrical or rectangular stick.
(chiefly Canada, US) A small rectangular block, with a length several times its width, which contains by volume one half of a cup of shortening (butter, margarine or lard).
The recipe calls for half a stick of butter.
A standard rectangular (often thin) piece of chewing gum.
Don’t hog all that gum, give me a stick!
(slang) A cigarette (usually a tobacco cigarette, less often a marijuana cigarette).
Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it[…]
(military) The structure to which a set of bombs in a bomber aircraft are attached and which drops the bombs when it is released. The bombs themselves and, by extension, any load of similar items dropped in quick succession such as paratroopers or containers.
2001, Raymond Mitchell, Commando Despatch Rider, →ISBN, page 70:
Scores of transport planes streamed in to drop stick after stick of containers until the entire sky over the coast was polka-dotted with brightly coloured parachutes.
James and I were in the same stick of five guys going through free fall school last September.
A tool, control, or instrument shaped somewhat like a stick.
(US,colloquial) A manual transmission, a vehicle equipped with a manual transmission, so called because of the stick-like, i.e. twig-like, control (the gear shift) with which the driver of such a vehicle controls its transmission.
I grew up driving stick, but many people my age didn't.
(aviation) The control column of an aircraft; a joystick. (By convention, a wheel-like control mechanism with a handgrip on opposite sides, similar to the steering wheel of an automobile, is also called the "stick".)
I remember when we dreaded the rain, as our stick of soldiers walked through the damp, tick-infested long grass of the Zambezi valley,[…]
Encouragement or punishment, or (resulting) vigour or other improved behavior.
A negative stimulus or a punishment. (This sense derives from the metaphor of using a stick, a long piece of wood, to poke or beat a beast of burden to compel it to move forward. Compare carrot.)
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'Choir gave it some stick on "Unto Us a Son is Born."' ¶ Cynthia nodded. ¶ 'It was always one of Russell's favourites. He makes them try hard on that.'
There was another speech in that day's news — a speech which The Times printed on the front page because it was part of a front-page story, and in full — it was only two sticks long; printed in full just after the much longer invocation by the officiating clergyman […]
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Sorani: Lua error in Module:parameters at line 360: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "ku" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E.
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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Cognate with the first etymology (same PIE root, different paths through Germanic and Old English), to stitch, and to etiquette, via French étiquette – see there for further discussion.
Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.
2007, Amanda Lamb, Smotherhood: Wickedly Funny Confessions from the Early Years:
What I get from work makes me a better mother, and what I get from being a mother makes me a better journalist. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Though a cup of cold water from some hand may not be without its reward, yet stick not thou for wine and oil for the wounds of the distressed […]
1740, James Blair, Our Saviour's divine sermon on the mount [...] explained, volume 3, page 26:
And so careful were they to put off the Honour of great Actions from themselves, and to centre it upon God, that they stuck not sometimes to depreciate themselves that they might more effectually honour him.
For he that sticks not at one bad Action, will not scruple another to vindicate himself: And so, Devil-like, become the Tempter, and the Accuser too!
1743, Thomas Stackhouse, A Compleat Body of Speculative and Practical Divinity, edition 3 (London), page 524:
The First-fruits were a common Oblation to their Deities; but the chief Part of their Worship consisted in sacrificiing Animals : And this they did out of a real Persuasion, that their Gods were pleased with their Blood, and were nourished with the Smoke, and Nidor of them; and therefore the more costly, they thought them the more acceptable, for which Reason, they stuck not sometimes to regale them with human Sacrifices.
He that has to do with young scholars, especially in mathematics, may perceive how their minds open by degrees, and how it is exercise alone that opens them. Sometimes they will stick a long time at a part of a demonstration, not for want of perceiving the connection of two ideas; that, to one whose understanding is more exercised, is as visible as any thing can be.
(dated,intransitive) To cause difficulties, scruples, or hesitation.
1708, Jonathan Swift, The Sentiments of a Church-of-England-Man, with respect to Religion and Government, in The Works of Jonathan Swift, 7th edition, Edinburgh: G. Hamilton et al., 1752, Volume I, Miscellanies in Prose, p. 73,[7]
[…] this is the Difficulty that seemeth chiefly to stick with the most reasonable of those, who, from a mere Scruple of Conscience, refuse to join with us upon the Revolution Principle […].
Afore we got to the shanty Colonel Applegate stuck his head out of the door. His temper had been getting raggeder all the time, and the sousing he got when he fell overboard had just about ripped what was left of it to ravellings.
(transitive) To press (something with a sharp point) into something else.
The balloon will pop when I stick this pin in it.
to stick a needle into one's finger
(Can we date this quote by Dryden and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
circa 1583, John Jewel, in a sermon republished in 1847 in The Works of John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, portion 2, page 969:
In certain of their sacrifices they had a lamb, they sticked him, they killed him, and made sacrifice of him: this lamb was Christ the Son of God, he was killed, sticked, and made a sweet-smelling sacrifice for our sins.
2005, “Stay Fly”, in Jordan Houston, Darnell Carlton, Paul Beauregard, Premro Smith, Marlon Goodwin, David Brown, and Willie Hutchinson (lyrics), Most Known Unknown[8], performed by Three 6 Mafia (featuring Young Buck, 8 Ball, and MJG), Sony BMG:
You leave your girl around me; if she's bad she's gonna get stuck.
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