1. The stone or hard endocarp of the cherry.
c. 1350. Medical MS., in Archæol., XXX. 354. Late hym take ye cheriston mete And with holy watir it drynke & ete.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 72. Cheristone, petrilla.
1584. R. Scot, Discov. Witchcr., XIII. xxviii. 335. Take a nut, or a cheristone & burne a hole through the side of the top of the shell.
1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., III. vi. 276. Cæsar’s Image drawn upon a Cherry-stone is a piece of great curiosity.
1784. Johnson, in Boswell, 13 June. Milton … could cut a Colossus from a rock; but … not carve heads upon cherry-stones.
b. As the type of a thing of trifling value.
[1590. Shaks., Com. Err., IV. iii. 74. Some diuels aske but the parings of ones naile, a rush, a haire, a drop of blood, a pin, a nut, a cherrie-stone.]
1607. Dekker, Wh. Babylon, Wks. 1873, II. 276. Not a cherry stone of theirs was sunke.
1759. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, I. xix. He would not give a cherry-stone to choose amongst them.
2. A game played with these stones.
1519. Horman, Vulg., xxxii. 282. Playenge at cheriston is good for children.
c. 1520. Skelton, Sp. Parrot, 331. To bryng all the see into a cheryston pit … To rule ix realmes by one mannes wytte.
[1537. Thersytes, in 4 Old Plays (1848), 82. The counters wherwith cherubyn did cheristones count.]
