Forms: 1 stincg, 4 Kent. steng, 5–6 stynge, 5–7 stinge, 1, 5–6 styng, 1, 4, 6– sting. [f. STING v.1
It is possible that two words from the root of the vb. have coalesced: OE. sting:—prehist. *stingo-z and OE. styng (Kentish ME. steng):—*stungi-z (= OHG. stung). A dial. form stinge (stindʓ) appears to represent yet another formation, OE. *stęnge or *stęngea. Cf. Norw. styng masc., prick, sting.]
1. a. The act of stinging. b. The fact or effect of being stung; the wound inflicted by the aculeus of an insect, the telson of a scorpion, the fang of an adder, etc.; the pain or smart of such a wound.
c. 900. Bæda’s Hist., II. ix. (1890), 123. Næfde he scyld æt honda, þæt he þone cyning mid scyldan meahte: sette þa his lichoman betweoh beforan þam stynge.
a. 950. Guthlac (Prose), xvi. Þa besloh se þorn on þone fot, and swa strang wæs se sting þæs þornes, þæt he eode þurh þone fot.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., I. 272. Wið scorpiones stincg ʓenim þas ylcan wyrte, leʓe to ðam stinge.
c. 1315. Shoreham, Poems, iv. 86. Þe wonde swelþ an akeþ, So doþ þe naddre steng.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., III. ii. 325. Their softest Touch, as smart as Lyzards stings.
1636. Marmion, Antiquary, IV. (1641), G 4. Why did you send this serpent to my bosome, To pierce me through with greater cruelty, Than Cleopatra felt from stings of Adders?
1748. Anson’s Voy., II. viii. 217. A most mischievous serpent … whose sting they believed to be inevitable death.
1865. Hardwicke’s Sci.-Gossip, 1 July, 166/1. I am told by fishermen that many instances are known of persons losing the use of a hand by this sting [sc. of the weever-fish].
1875. Ruskin, Hort. Inclus. (1887), 33. The pang of a nice deep wasp sting.
b. The smart or irritation produced by touching a nettle or similar plant.
1878. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Engl. Folk-lore, 172. To cure the sting of a nettle, the person stung must [etc.].
1884. R. Folkard, Jun., Plant Lore, 313–4. It is a common practice … for anyone suffering from the stings of a Nettle to apply a cold Dock-leaf to the inflamed spot.
2. A sharp-pointed organ in certain insects and other animals (e.g., bees, wasps, scorpions) capable of inflicting a painful or dangerous wound. Applied also to the fang or venom-tooth (and erroneously to the forked tongue) of a poisonous serpent.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XI. v. (1495), 414. Many males of been ben wythout stinges.
1523–34. Fitzherb., Husb., § 122. It is a sayenge that she [the drone] hath loste her stynge, and than she wyl not labour as the other do.
1530. Palsgr., 276/1. Styng of a serpent or any other venomous beest, esguillon.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. i. 15. Her huge long taile … Pointed with mortall sting. Ibid., I. i. 23. A cloud of combrous gnattes do him molest, All striuing to infixe their feeble stings.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, III. 32. A serpent … Her blew necke (swolne with poison) raisd, and her sting out.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Ecl., III. 145. Beware the secret Snake that shoots a Sting.
1726. Swift, Gulliver, II. iii. I took out their stings, found them an inch and a half long, and as sharp as needles.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, II. V. ii. 276. When not in use, the sting [of the bee] is completely enclosed in the abdomen.
3. Bot. A stiff sharp-pointed tubular hair, which emits an irritating fluid when touched. † Also applied to a thorn.
1567. Maplet, Gr. Forest, 62 b. The Thorn tree is armed about with Dart and sting.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, IV. lxiv. 526. White Cotton Thistel…. The stalke is great & thicke set full of prickley stings.
1597. Middleton, Wisd. Solomon, iv. 4. The nettle hath a sting, the rose a thorn.
1857. Miss Pratt, Flower. Pl., V. 23. The sting of the Nettle is a tubular hair.
4. A spike used for driving cattle.
1833. Tennyson, Palace of Art, 150. The people here, a beast of burden slow, Toil’d onward, prick’d with goads and stings.
5. In many fig. uses; e.g., an acute pain or sharp wound inflicted on the mind or heart; something that (or that element in anything which) inflicts acute pain; the ‘point’ of an epigram or sarcasm; something that goads to action or appetite, a sharp stimulus or incitement.
c. 1412. Hoccleve, De Reg. Princ., 3909. Yf … fortunes stynge hym ouerthwerte.
1526. Tindale, 1 Cor. xv. 56. The stynge of deeth is synne.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, III. (1598), 367. The renewed sting of iealosie.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., II. vii. 188. Freize, freize, thou bitter skie … thy sting is not so sharpe, as freind remembred not. Ibid. (1601), All’s Well, III. iv. 18. Ah what sharpe stings are in her mildest words! Ibid. (1603), Meas. for M., I. iv. 59. One, who neuer feeles The wanton stings, and motions of the sence.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, XIII. 233. Be assur’d, my spirite needs no stings To this hote conflict.
1657. in Verney Mem. (1907), II. 52. His letter to you I hope will be full of douceur with out a stinge at the tayle of it.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 326. Too soon they must not feel the Stings of Love.
1713. Addison, Cato, I. i. Portius, no more! your words leave stings behind ’em.
1770. Langhorne, Plutarch, Marcellus, II. 399. This [result of an ambuscade] added stings to Marcellus’s desire of an engagement.
1818. Hallam, Mid. Ages (1872), I. 67. The sting of taxation is wastefulness.
1823. Lamb, Elia, Ser. II. Pop. Fallacies, xii. The innocent prattle of his children takes out the sting of a man’s poverty.
1842. Macaulay, Fredk. Gt., Ess. 1851, II. 672. For that end it was necessary that Prussia should be all sting. Ibid. (1849), Hist. Eng., vi. II. 129. They never worked till they felt the sting of hunger.
b. In generalized sense: Stinging quality, capacity to sting or hurt; a (specified) degree or amount of this.
1863. Lillywhite’s Cricket Scores, III. 74. He … often took the ‘sting’ out of the bowling, by getting his runs remarkably slow.
1876. Trevelyan, Macaulay, vii. II. 4. This passage, as it now stands, has been deprived of half its sting.
1893. Q. [Quiller-Couch], Delect. Duchy, 342. The firemen, by shouting it as heartily as the rest, robbed the epigram of all its sting.
1896. Daily News, 29 June, 7/2. When once collared the Yorkshire bowling lacks sting.
1900. J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough (ed. 2), III. 92. To give more sting to every blow the whip-lashes are knotted.
6. The tapering point of a pointer’s tail. Cf. sting-tail (a) in sense 8.
1872. ‘Idstone’ (T. Pearce), The Dog, 119. The genuine sort [of Pointers] has a tail thick at the root, and gradually tapering to an absolute point or ‘sting.’ Ibid., 122. At last we have seen the sting of her fine stern above the rushes.
† 7. Mus. = sting-grace in sense 8. Obs.
1676. Mace, Musicks Mon., 109. The Sting, is another very Neat, and Pritty Grace; (But not Modish in These Days).
8. Comb., as sting-proof adj.; sting-bull, the greater weever, Trachinus draco; sting-fish, (a) the lesser weever, Trachinus vipera; (b) the sea-scorpion, Cottus scorpius; † sting-free a., exempt from, or proof against, being stung; † sting-grace Mus., a particular tremolo effect in lute-playing; sting-moth, the Australian moth, Doratifera vulnerans, the larva of which is able to sting; sting-nettle, Urtica dioica and other species; sting-tail, (a) a tail tapering to a point, as in the pointer (cf. 6); (b) U.S. = STING-RAY; sting-tailed a., having a sting in the tail (also fig.); sting-winkle (see quot.); † sting-worm, ? a worm supposed to sting cattle (cf. TAINT-WORM). Also STING RAY.
1836. Yarrell, Brit. Fishes, I. 20. The Great Weever, *Sting-bull, Sea Cat. Ibid., I. 25. Lesser Weever, Otter-pike, *Sting-fish.
1863. Couch, Fishes Brit. Isl., II. 8. Sting-fish … Cottus Scorpius.
1644. S. Kem, Messengers Prepar., 27. Nothing can arme death to hurt us but sin, otherwise thou art hard, *sting-free.
1658. Rowland, trans. Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 907. If you would indeed resolve to go sting-free, or at least heal your self being stung.
1676. Mace, Musick’s Mon., 126. Those Three Notes also to have the *Sting-Grace.
1863. Wood, Illustr. Nat. Hist., III. 537. *Sting-moth, Doratifera vulnerans.
1822–7. Good, Study Med. (1829), V. 132. Both *sting-nettles and flagellations … are said to have worked wonders.
1869. Blackmore, Lorna D., vii. I rubbed them [my toes] well with a sprout of young sting-nettle.
1886. H. P. Wells, Amer. Salmon Fisherm., 85. Kid gloves are *sting-proof.
1872. T. Pearce, Idstone Papers, iii. 30. That pointer, with his graceful lines, *sting-tail, and polished coat.
1881. E. Ingersoll, Oyster. Industr. (Hist. Fish. Industr. U.S.), 249. Sting-tail.—The sting-ray, Dasybatis centrura. (New York.)
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. xxiv. § 104. Those *sting-tailed Locusts, arising with foggy smoake from the bottomlesse pit.
1905. Q. Rev., Jan., 30. Sting-tailed witticisms.
1851. Woodward, Mollusca, 106. Murex Erinaceus … is called *‘sting-winkle’ by fishermen, who say it makes round holes in the other shell-fish with its beak.
1577. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., III. 134 b. If he [a bullock] swell of the Taint, or *Stingworme, geue him Vrine, Salt & Tryacle to drinke.
