sty

See also: stý

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /staɪ/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• 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. (figurative) A messy, dirty or debauched place.
   • 1634 October 9 (first performance)​, [John Milton], H[enry] Lawes, editor, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: Printed [by Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, OCLC 228715864; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, OCLC 1113942837:

     To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.

Synonyms

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

Translations

enclosure for swine

• Danish: sti (da) c
• Faroese: stíggjur m
• Finnish: sikolätti (fi)
• French: porcherie (fr) f
• Hungarian: disznóól (hu)
• Irish: cró muc m, cró muice m
• Japanese: 豚舎 (ja) (とんしゃ, tonsha), 豚小屋 (ja) (ぶたごや, butagoya)
• Latin: hara f
• Latvian: cūkkūts f, cūku kūts f

• Macedonian: ко́чина f (kóčina), сви́њарник m (svínjarnik)
• Maori: rāihe, pākoro, pākorokoro
• Portuguese: chiqueiro (pt) m, pocilga (pt) f
• Romanian: cocină (ro) f
• Russian: хлев (ru) m (xlev), свина́рник (ru) m (svinárnik)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Roman: svinjac (sh) m

• Slovak: krmník m
• Spanish: pocilga (es) f
• Swedish: stia (sv), svinstia (sv)

messy or dirty place

• Bulgarian: кочина (bg) (kočina)
• Finnish: läävä (fi), sikolätti (fi)
• French: porcherie (fr) f
• Hungarian: disznóól (hu)
• Japanese: 豚小屋 (ja) (ぶたごや, butagoya)
• Latvian: cūkkūts f, cūku kūts f

• Macedonian: ко́чина f (kóčina), сви́њарник m (svínjarnik)
• Portuguese: chiqueiro (pt) m
• Russian: свина́рник (ru) m (svinárnik)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Roman: svinjac (sh) m

• Swedish: stia (sv), svinstia (sv)

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
   • William Shakespeare, The Tempest Act I, Scene II:

     and here you sty me
     In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
     The rest o' the island

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

Etymology 2

From Middle English stien, stiȝen, from Old English stīġan (“to go; ascend, mount”), from Proto-Germanic *stīganą, from Proto-Indo-European *steygʰ-. Cognate with Dutch stijgen, German steigen, Norwegian Bokmål stige, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish stiga, Old Norse stíga.

Alternative forms

• stee, stie, stigh, stye

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.]
   • 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 [...].

   • 1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “Muipotmos”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: Imprinted for VVilliam Ponsonbie, […], OCLC 15537294:

     From this lower tract he dared to stie up to the clowdes.

   • 1621, Richard Montague, Diatribae upon the first part of the late History of Tithes

     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.

   • 1652, Edward Benlowes, Theophila, or Love's Sacrifice

     That she might sty to the seat of Beatifick Mirth.

Derived terms

• styan
• stirrup

Related terms

• stile

Translations

to rise up — see ascend

Noun

sty (plural sties)

1. (Britain, 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. (medicine) An inflammation of the eyelid.

Translations

inflammation — see stye

Anagrams

• YTS

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Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English stiġ, stī, from Proto-Germanic *stiją.

Alternative forms

• stye, styȝe

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /stiː/

Noun

sty (plural styes)

2. A pigsty (pen or set of pens for pigs)
3. (rare) Any other crude dwelling or abode.

Descendants

• English: sty

References

• “stī (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-08.

Etymology 2

From Old English stīġ, from Proto-Germanic *stīgō.

Alternative forms

• sti, stie, stye, stiyhe, stiȝe, stiȝhe

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /stiː/

Noun

sty (plural styes or stiȝen)

2. A path, track or street.
3. (figurative) One's chosen pathway or choices in life.
4. (figurative, rare) A short narrative.

References

• “stī(e (n.(1))” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-08.