dial. [Of obscure origin: perh. a use of OE. stęll (stiell, styll) a leap, related to stęllan to leap, jump.] An open ditch or brook.
1651. in N. Riding Rec., V. 76. The inhabitants of Pottoe … [are presented] for not scouring their proportion of Traineham Stell.
c. 1783. Roxb. Ballads (1890), VII. 94. When fully intending to lead the whole field, A damn’d Stell held ’em both ’till the Fox he was kill’d.
1825. Brockett, N. C. Gloss., Stell, a large open drain in a marsh.
1825. Sporting Mag., XVI. 14, note. A stell is the Durham name for a brook whose banks are not firm. Ibid. (1827), XXI. 33. We shall never get over that stell.
1878. Susan Phillips, On Seaboard, 164. Where Tees sweeps into the Northern main, And the glittering ‘stells,’ and the link’s long range.
1885. Manch. City News, 31 Jan., 2/4. I came upon a lane with a tiny brook crossing it, which in Yorkshire is called a stell.
1886. W. H. Burnett, Old Cleveland, 126. This stable was built on an open stell, which rose and fell with the tide.
