Sc. and dial. [? Sc. variant of STOB sb.: cf. tap = top. But cf. also Da., Norw., Sw. dial. stabbe, mod. Icel. stabbi tree-stump, block, Da. dial. stabb peg.]
1. A stake, a wooden post.
Stab and rice = stake and rice: see STAKE sb.1 2 a. Stab and stow: completely, entirely.
1680. Invent., in Scott. N. & Q., IX. 95. Ane wall of stab and ryce … ane chimnay of stab and ryce.
1722. W. Hamilton, Wallace, 259 (Jam.). Who set their lodgings all in a fair low About their ears and burnt them stab and stow.
1821. Galt, Ann. Parish, vi. The plantations supplied him with stabs to make stake and rice between his fields.
1842. J. Aiton, Dom. Econ. (1857), 160. The minister of a village … requested that a wall should be built round his glebe. ‘Would stabs and railings not answer the purpose equally well?’ asked one present.
1907. Eppie Frazer, Clodhopper, I. ii. 8. They’ve drawn the loosened paling stab.
2. A stump.
c. 1800. Howlett, in Young’s Agric. Essex (1807), I. 180. As soon as the hedge is cut down, most of which [is] within an inch or two of the old stabb. Ibid. With the young shoots of the parts cut off close to the stabbs.
3. A block (of wood, etc.) used as a seat.
1805. G. McIndoe, Poems, 10 (E.D.D.). The seat, a stab, the heel pins rotten.
