/stɪl/, [stɪɫ], [stɪo̯]
OriginFrom Middle English stille (“motionless, stationary”), from Old English stille (“still, quiet”), from Proto-West Germanic *stillī, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)telH- (“to be silent; to be still”). Cognate with Scots stil (“still”), Saterland Frisian stil (“motionless, calm, quiet”), West Frisian stil (“quiet, still”), Dutch stil (“quiet, silent, still”), Low German still (“quiet, silent, still”), German still (“still, quiet, tranquil, silent”), Swedish stilla (“quiet, silent, peaceful”), Icelandic stilltur (“set, quiet, calm, still”). Related to stall.
(noun: Falkland Islander): Military slang, short for still a Benny, since the military had been instructed not to refer to the islanders by the derogatory term Benny (which see).
- Not moving; calm.
“Sit there and stay still!”
“Still waters run deep.”
- Not effervescing; not sparkling.
“still water; still wines”
- Uttering no sound; silent.
“The sea that roared at thy command, / At thy command was still.”
- not-comparableHaving the same stated quality continuously from a past time
“To follow the still President’s marching orders, all that Secretary Ronnie Puno has to do is to follow the road map laid out by Justice Azcuna in his “separate” opinion.”
- Comparatively quiet or silent; soft; gentle; low.
“[…] a still small voice.”
- obsoleteConstant; continual.
“By still practice learn to know thy meaning.”
“[…] A lifelong tract of time reveal’d;
The fruitful hours of still increase;
Days order’d in a wealthy peace,
And those five years its richest field.”
- datedDormant.
- not-comparableWithout motion.
“They stood still until the guard was out of sight.”
- not-comparableUp to a time, as in the preceding time.
“Is it still raining? It was still raining five minutes ago.”
“We’ve seen most of the sights, but we are still visiting the museum.”
“I’m still not wise enough to answer that.”
- not-comparableTo an even greater degree. Used to modify comparative adjectives or adverbs.
“Tom is tall; Dick is taller; Harry is still taller / Harry is taller still.”
“The guilt being great, the fear doth still exceed.”
- conjunctive, not-comparableNevertheless.
“I’m not hungry, but I’ll still manage to find room for dessert.”
“Yeah, but still...”
“She'd been here many times before, it was true. Still, she held out some hope.”
- archaic, not-comparable, poeticAlways; invariably; constantly; continuously.
“Lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery; nothing else holds fashion.”
“[W]hereas many Chymiſts vvould be vaſtly rich, if they could ſtill do in great Quantities vvhat they have ſometimes done in little ones, many have undone themſelves by obſtinately attempting to make e”
“The desire of fame betrays an ambitious man into indecencies that lessen his reputation; he is still afraid lest any of his actions should be thrown away in private.”
- not-comparableEven, yet.
“Some dogs howl; more yelp; still more bark.”
“Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associ”
- A period of calm or silence.
“the still of the night”
“Between the roar of the thunder and the blatter of the rain there were intervals of an astounding still, of an ominous suspense […]”
“As the ground warms, to the first rays of light, / A birdsong shatters the still.”
- A photograph, as opposed to movie footage.
- A single frame from a film.
“One of his best stories was "Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life" (1914), of which there survives only an amusing still, showing poor Mabel Normand chained to the rails by two toughs, the moustached vil”
- slangA resident of the Falkland Islands.
- A device for distilling liquids.
- A large water boiler used to make tea and coffee.
- The area in a restaurant used to make tea and coffee, separate from the main kitchen.
- A building where liquors are distilled; a distillery.
- To calm down, to quiet.
“to still the raging sea”
“They likewise believed that he, having a full Sway and Command over the Water, had Power to still and compose it, as well as to move and disturb it […]”
“Is this the scourge of France? / Is this the Talbot, so much fear'd abroad / That with his name the mothers still their babes?”
- obsoleteTo trickle, drip.
“And if that any drop of slombring rest / Did chaunce to still into her wearie spright,”
- To cause to fall by drops.
- To expel spirit from by heat, or to evaporate and condense in a refrigeratory; to distill.
“The knowledge of stilling is one pretty feat,
The waters be wholesome, the charges not great”
Formsstiller(comparative) · more still(comparative) · stillest(superlative) · most still(superlative) · stil(alternative) · stille(alternative) · styll(alternative) · stylle(alternative) · stills(plural) · stills(present, singular, third-person) · stilling(participle, present) · stilled(participle, past) · stilled(past)