[f. STAGGER v.]
1. An act of staggering; a tottering or reeling motion of the body as if about to fall, as through feebleness, tripping, giddiness or intoxication.
1600. Rowlands, Lett. Humours Blood, ii. 8. Thus doth Sir Launcelot in his drunken stagger, Sweare, curse, & raile, threaten, protest, and swagger.
1615. T. Adams, Sacrif. Thankf., 26. Their trepidations are more shaking then cold Ague-fittes; their staggers worse then a Drunkards.
1816. J. Scott, Vis. Paris, Pref. (ed. 5), 38. This throne has tumbled down like rotten wood under her stagger and fall.
1842. Lover, Handy Andy, v. Making a sloping stagger towards the wall, [he] contrived by its support to scramble his way to the door.
1862. Sala, Ship-Chandler, iv. 72. The individual … advanced with a motion that alternated between a reel and a stagger, far more resembling that of a drunken man than of a labouring ship.
transf. 1599. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Rev., V. iv. He hobbles too much.—’Tis call’d your court-staggers, sir.
b. fig. (Cf. STAGGER v. 2.)
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, II. iii. 170. I will throw thee from my care for euer Into the staggers, and the carelesse lapse of youth and ignorance.
1642. D. Rogers, Naaman, 133. The ignorance of this causes the soule to bee in as deep a stagger after Christ is revealed, as it was before.
1782. Paine, Let. Abbé Raynal (1791), 55. Without shewing the least stagger in their fortitude.
1869. J. Eadie, Comm. Galatians, 70. The unbelief ascribed to Peter and Thomas was a momentary stagger.
2. pl. (const. as sing.) Used as a name for various diseases affecting domestic animals, of which a staggering gait is a symptom. Also with various defining words, indicating the characteristics or the supposed cause of the disease, e.g., blind, grass, mad, sleepy, stomach staggers. Cf. STAVER sb.
The staggers in sheep is caused by the presence of a hydatid (Cœnurnus, the larva of a tapeworm) in the brain.
1577. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., III. 134. If he [a bullock] haue the staggers, he wyl looke very red about the eyes.
1596. Mascall, Bk. Cattell, Hogges, 277. For the staggars in a hog.
1628. Wither, Brit. Rememb., VIII. 820. Some sheep … get the staggers; some the scab.
1667. Pepys, Diary, 18 Aug. One of our coach-horses fell sick of the staggers, so as he was ready to fall down.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1757), 413. The long-legged hogs, as it were double-jointed at the knee, are of a breed subject to the staggers.
1737. Bracken, Farriery Impr. (1757), II. 279. A sort of Frenzy, resembling the Mad-staggers.
1753. Bartlet, Gentl. Farriery, ix. 77. Farriers generally include all distempers of the head under two general denominations, viz. Staggers, and Convulsions.
1831. Youatt, Horse, vi. (1847), 113. The attack is usually sudden—the horse is dull, lethargic, and almost as comatose as in stomach-staggers.
1843. LeFevre, Life Trav. Phys., II. I. xv. 72. Three of them [horses] were seized with the staggers, and … fell down dead.
1847. W. C. L. Martin, The Ox, 130/2. Inflammation of the brain, phrensy, mad staggers or sough (phrenitis), and apoplexy.
1849. D. J. Browne, Amer. Poultry Yd. (1855), 41. A correspondent in the London Agricultural Gazette … admits, that,… he had ‘never brought up but two to be a’most hens,’ and that they took the megrims (staggers) and died.
1858. J. Hogg, Microsc., II. iii. (ed. 3), 441. If a lamb is the subject of a feeding experiment with Tænia serrata … within a fortnight symptoms of a disease known as ‘staggers’ are manifested.
1860. E. Mayhew, Horse Doctor, 7. Sleepy staggers.
1868. Rep. U.S. Commissioner Agric. (1869), 41. Blind staggers has been somewhat fatal in the south and west.
1883. W. Robertson, Equine Med., 382. Grass staggers.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., II. 1106. The allied organism Cœnurus, which produces the ‘gid’ or ‘staggers.’
b. allusively. (To have) the staggers: inability to walk steadily.
1599. Porter, Angry Wom. Abington (Percy Soc.), 44. He [the butler] hath got a horses desease, namely the staggers.
1603. Dekker, Wonderfull Yeare, Wks. (Grosart), I. 136. This setter vp of Malt-men, being troubled with the staggers, fell into the selfe-same graue.
1608. Heywood, Lucrece, I. i. Heere’s a giddie world, it Reeles, it hath got the staggers.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., V. v. 233. How comes these staggers on mee?
1620. Hic Mulier (title-p.), Being a Medicine to cure the Coltish Disease of the Staggers in the Masculine-Feminines of our Times.
1621. J. Taylor (Water P.), Motto, A 4 b. Some with the staggers, cannot stand vpright.
1688. Bunyan, Disc. Build. Ho. God, Wks. 1853, II. 582/1. Let them but feel your pulse, and they will tell You quickly whether you are sick or well. Have you the staggers? They can help you there.
1801. Sir T. Munro, in G. R. Gleig, Life, ix. (1849), 165. It has given me the staggers, for I often reel when I get up as if I were drunk.
1837. Tennyson, in Ld. Tennyson, Mem. (1897), I. 159. A nervous, morbidly-irritable man … stark-spoiled with the staggers of a mis-managed imagination.
3. dial. and slang. (See quots.)
1880. Antrim & Down Gloss., Stagger, an attempt.
1887. I. K. Funk, in N. Y. Voice (Extra), 1 Sept. It is a temperance party between drinks, and it makes a stagger at temperance reform.
1895. Funk’s Stand. Dict., Stagger (Telegrapher’s Slang), a guess at an illegible word in a telegram.
1900. A. McIlroy, By Lone Craig-Linnie Burn, iii. 30. They gave their consent to the marriage, remarking to the neighbours that ‘Oor Bessie’s makin’ a wunnerfu’ stagger.’
4. attrib. stagger-bush U.S., the shrub Andromeda mariana, supposed to give the staggers to sheep; stagger-grass, ‘the atamasco-lily, Zephyranthes Atamasco: so called as supposed to cause staggers in horses’ (Cent. Dict., 1891); stagger-juice Austral. slang, strong drink; stagger-weed (see quot.); staggerwort, the ragwort, Senecio Jacobæa, supposed to cure staggers in horses.
1847. Darlington, Amer. Weeds (1860), 213. A[ndromeda] Mariana.… *Stagger-bush…. The farmers … allege that it is injurious to sheep, when the leaves are eaten by them,—producing a disease called the staggers.
1907. A. Macdonald, In Land of Pearl & Gold, 22. Lor! Boss! if we didn’t drink the *stagger-juice no one would.
1855. Dunglison, Med. Lex., *Staggerweed, Delphinium.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, II. xxvi. 219. The countrey people do call it [Jacobea] *Stagger woort, and Stauerwoort, and also Ragwoorte.
1665. Lovell, Herbal (ed. 2), 415. Stagger wort or Stanner wort, see Rag wort.
