sb. Obs. exc. arch. Forms: 6–7 stockado, stoccado, stoc(c)ata, (7 stookado), 6 stoccato, 7 stocado, stoc(c)ada, 9 arch. stoccata, stoccado, (stocado); 6–7 stackado, 7 stacado, 9 staccato; 8 stoccade (anglicized, rare). [Corruptly a. It. stoccata, f. stocco point of sword, dagger. Cf. the corresponding Sp., Pg. estocada (which may be the source of some forms), and Fr. estocade (from Sp.); and cf. -ADO 2.] A thrust or stab with a pointed weapon.
1582. Hester, Secr. Phiorav., II. xli. 123. [He] tooke hym by the coller and gaue him fiue stockadoes in the breast to haue slaine hym.
1595. Saviolo, Practise, I. 10. Let him [the scholar] … thrust his Rapier vnder his teachers, and giue him a thrust or stoccata in the belly.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., II. i. 234. In these times you stand on distance: your Passes, Stoccado’s, and I know not what.
1603. [see MANDRITTA].
1657. Ligon, Barbadoes, 52. I have seen some of these Portugall Negres … play at Rapier and Dagger very skilfully, with their Stookados, their Imbrocados, and their Passes.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 156. Whom when they meet they must give him the Way with a Cringe and Civil Salute, for fear of a Stockado.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. III. iii. We behold two men … flourishing and thrusting, stoccado and passado.
1860. Whyte-Melville, Holmby House, xv. [temp. c. 1650] Your staccatos and passados, and cursed Italian tricks of fence.
fig. and in fig. context. 1596. Harington, Metam. Ajax, Prol. B 5 b. I … entred the lists with him & fighting after the old English maner without the stockados, (for to voine or strike below the girdle, we counted it base and too cowardly) after halfe a score downeright blowes, we grew to be friends.
1656. Earl Monm., trans. Boccalini’s Advts. fr. Parnass. (1674), A 2 b. My Author … gives sometimes very home and sharp Stockadoes.
1716. M. Davies, Athen. Brit., II. 403. Those injur’d Fathers … are doubtless the more sensible of such Mortal Stoccades, as coming from pretended filial Hands.
Hence † Stoccado v. trans., to stab with a pointed weapon.
1676. D’Urfey, Madam Fickle, V. ii. ’Twas well my Lord your Valor interpos’d betwixt me and the danger, by Heaven I had been stockado’d else.
