[WALKING vbl. sb.1]
1. A stick or short staff carried in the hand when walking.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, Baguette, a white rodde, a walking sticke.
1622. Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, V. i. You may take me in with a walking sticke, Even when you please, and hold me with a pack-threed.
1788. Barker, Growth of Trees, in Phil. Trans., LXXVIII. 413. No. 21. was about as thick as a walking-stick in 1730.
1836. Dickens, Sk. Boz, Shops & Tenants. A tobacconist, who also dealt in walking-sticks and Sunday newspapers.
1915. W. P. Livingstone, Mary Slessor, IV. vi. 216. One man … was dressed in a hat, a loin-cloth, and a walking-stick.
b. The name of a plant (see quot.).
1910. Friar Park, Henley, Guide (ed. 3), 184. Walking-stick or Elk-horn (Opuntia arborescens), the woody stems are made into walking-sticks.
2. Any insect of the family Phasmidæ (see quots.). Also walking-stick insect.
1760. G. Edwards, Glean. Nat. Hist., II. 168. Fig. 4 … represents … the Walking-stick. It is so much like a dry stick, that it is supposed to deceive birds and other animals, that prey upon insects.
1872. Darwin, Orig. Species (ed. 6), vii. 182. As in the case … of a walking-stick insect (Ceroxylus laceratus).
1885. C. F. Holder, Marvels Anim. Life, 146. The walking-sticks … resembling the twig upon which they rest.
3. attrib. and Comb., chiefly with the sense ‘made to resemble a walking-stick,’ as walking-stick gun, stand, stool. Also walking-stick palm, an Australian palm, Bacularia monostachya, the stem of which is used for making walking-sticks.
1884. Miller, Plant-n., Kentia (Areca) monostachya, Whip-stick, or Walking-stick, Palm.
1892. Greener, Breech-Loader, 45. Such weapons as walking-stick guns.
1892. Photogr. Ann., II. 387. Walking Stick Stand.
1907. Gentl. Mag., July, 38. Young gentlemen seated at their ease on patent collapsible walking-stick stools.
