Stained

ppl. a. [f. STAIN v. + -ED¹.]

  1.  Discolored with blood, dirt, etc.; having stains or blemishes. Also fig., tainted with guilt, disgraced, etc. Often in comb. with a prefixed sb., as BLOOD-STAINED, EARTH-STAINED, GUILT-STAINED, TRAVEL-STAINED, etc.

1382.  Wyclif, Isa. lxiii. 1. Who is this that cam fro Edom, with steyned clothes from Bosra?

1538.  Elyot, Dict., Infectus, infected, dyed, stayned, poysoned.

1592.  Arden of Feversham, III. vi. 85. Then softly drawes she foorth her handkercher, And modestly she wypes her teare staind face.

1607.  Lever, Crucifix (Grosart), 49. O what is man whome Thou regardest so! A stayned cloth, a beauty withered.

a. 1628.  F. Grevil, Monarchy, ccccclxxiv. Let Princes … Reform that common stained Discipline, Which is the Base of unprosperity.

1889.  Hardwicke’s Sci. Gossip, XXV. 228/2. The chalk is full of iron-stained fissures.

1899.  Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 701. Patches of stained skin may be due to various local irritants.

  † 2.  Ornamented with pictures or designs in color: esp. in stained cloth. Obs.

1397.  in Finchale Priory Charters, etc. (Surtees), p. cxvii. Item j lectus stewynd cum tapete.

1413–4.  Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees), 224. Cum 2 steyned clothes emptis pro dicta capella.

c. 1449.  Pecock, Repr., II. xviii. 258. In this steyned clooth ridith Hector of Troie; and here in this steyned clooth King Herri leieth a sege to Harflew.

1463.  Bury Wills (Camden), 23. The steynyd clooth of the Coronacion of oure lady.

c. 1474.  Invent., in Paston Lett., III. 407. Item, vj. steyned paperis, xij d.

15[?].  in Northumbld. Househ. Bk. (1770), 440. i Steyned Cloth of the Ymage of St. Nicholas.

1552.  in Daniel-Tyssen, Invent. Ch. Goods Surrey (1869), 15. Item one roode cloth of stayned canvas.

1627.  Bp. Hall, Charac. Virtues & Vices, I. 181. He can make his cottage a Mannor;… his staind-cloth Arras.

1696.  MSS. Ho. Lords (N.S.), II. 238. The wearing of wrought Silks, Bengals, and dyed, printed, or stained Calicoes, imported into the kingdom.

  † b.  Comb. (Cf. PAINTER-STAINER). Obs.

a. 1618.  J. Davies (Heref.), Wit’s Pilgr., Wks. (Grosart), II. 26/2. Beauty … is the Signe where Grace doth vse to lie But if thrust out, the Inne is most amisse … And hath but meerely stained-painted Walls.

  3.  Colored with liquid pigments that penetrate below the surface.

1562.  J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 179. Walles, Som seeld,… som painted, som staind.

1712.  Lond. Gaz., No. 5025/2. Such Printed, Painted, Stained or Dyed Silks.

1884.  Health Exhib. Catal., 38. The stained leather is then taken to the drying-rooms [in glove-manufacture].

  b.  Prepared with a staining preparation, esp. for microscopic observation.

1889.  Hardwicke’s Sci. Gossip, XXV. 31/1. A double stained-section of the plane wood. Ibid. (1890), XXVI. 101/2. Stained human muscle.

1899.  trans. Jaksch’s Clin. Diagn., viii. (ed. 4), 407. Such forms [of microbe] are to be discriminated by the behaviour of stained preparations in the presence of alcohol.

  4.  Stained glass: transparent colored glass, formed into decorative mosaics, used in windows (esp. of churches). Also, less correctly, glass that has been decorated with vitrified pigments. So also stained window.

1791.  Mrs. Radcliffe, Rom. Forest, ii. Whose pointed arches still exhibited fragments of stained glass.

1834.  L. Ritchie, Wand. by Seine, 159. The stained windows are very beautiful.

1859.  Gullick & Timbs, Painting, 136. Stained glass must not be confounded with painted glass. In stained glass the colouring is not superficial, but pervades the substance of the glass.

1890.  W. J. Gordon, Foundry, 142. The making of stained windows.

  fig.  1909.  J. Wells, Stewart of Lovedale, iii. 18. Though a zealous idealist, he did not look at present things through the stained glass of the imagination.

  attrib.  1838.  Civil Engin. & Arch. Jrnl., I. 155/2. The present want of encouragement to the stained glass artist.

1839.  Ure, Dict. Arts, 1159. Stained-glass pigments.

1849.  Rock, Ch. of Fathers, I. v. (1903), I. 280. Our stained-glass windows.

1881.  W. S. Gilbert, Patience, II. (Song, Bunthorne), I am not fond of uttering platitudes In stained-glass attitudes.