Forms: 4 stiþ(e, (steyth), 4–7 styth, 5 stethe, stede, 5–7 stythe, 6–7 stithe, 4– stith. [See STITHY.]
1. = STITHY sb. 1. Obs. exc. north.
c. 1300. Havelok, 1877. [They] beten on him so doth þe smith With þe hamer on þe stith.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Knt.’s T., 1168. The Smyth That forgeth sharpe swerdes on his Styth.
1426. Lydg., De Guil. Pilgr., 10973. Wyth-inne an hevy styth off stel, A ffethre sholde entre as wel As any doctryne … Sholde entre in-to hys hed.
1465. in Finchale Priory Charters, etc. (Surtees), p. ccxcix. ij stethes, ij foyrhamers [etc.].
1494. Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot., I. 250. Item, for tussen of the stede to the smede viij d.
1584–7. Greene, Carde of Fancie (1593), D 4 b. Valericus … determined to strike on the Stith while the yron was hot.
1586. Whitney, Choice of Emblems, 192. For there with strengthe he strikes vppon the stithe [rhyme-word pith].
1609. Heywood, Brit. Troy, VIII. xxi. 174. Most thinke Lame Vulcan on the Styth first wrought.
1787. Grose, Prov. Gloss., Stith, an anvil.
1823. E. Moor, Suffolk Words, Stith, a smith’s anvil.
1866. W. Henderson, Folk Lore N. C., i. 27. They placed a charge of gunpowder in the stith, or anvil of the blacksmith’s shop, and fired it.
† 2. = STITHY sb. 2. Obs. rare–1.
1633. P. Fletcher, Purple Isl., V. xliii. The first [bone] an Hammer call’d, whose out-grown sides Lie on the drumme; but, with his swelling end Fixt in the hollow Stithe.
