/stɛl/
OriginFrom Middle English stellen, from Old English stellan (“to give a place to, set, place”), from Proto-West Germanic *stalljan (“to put, position”), from Proto-Indo-European *stel- (“to place, put, post, stand”). Cognate with Dutch stellen (“to set, put”), dated Low German stellen (“to put, place, fix”), German stellen (“to set, place, provide”), Old English steall (“position, place”). More at stall.
- Scotland, UK, dialectal, transitiveTo place in position; set up, fix, plant; prop, mount.
“How he escaped a broken neck in that dreadful place no human being will ever ken. The sweat, he has told me, stood in cold drops upon his forehead; he scarcely was aware of the saddle in which he sat,”
- obsolete, transitiveTo portray; delineate; display.
“To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come,
To find a face where all distress is stelled.”
“Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart […]”
- archaicA place; station.
- A stall; a fold for cattle.
- ScotlandA prop; a support, as for the feet in standing or climbing.
- ScotlandA still.
“Paint Scotland greetin owre her thrissle;
Her mutchkin stowp as toom's a whissle;
An' damn'd excisemen in a bussle,
Seizin a stell,
Triumphant crushin't like a mussel,
Or limpet shell!”
“The English stell we could disdain,
Secure in valour's station;
But English gold has been our bane—
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!”
- A surname.
- informalA diminutive of the female given name Stella.
Formsstells(present, singular, third-person) · stelling(participle, present) · stelled(participle, past) · stelled(past) · stold(participle, past) · stold(past) · stells(plural)