Stook sb.

Forms: 5–6 stowk, stouke, 5–7 stowke, 5–6, 8–9 dial. stouk, 6 stuk, 9 dial. stuck, 6– stook. [ME. stouk, a. or cogn. w. MLG. stûke (WFlem. stuik) (WFlem. stuik) = HG. dial. stauche fem.; formally coincident (though etymological identity is doubtful on account of the difference of meaning) with a widespread Teut. word meaning sleeve: MLG. stûke, OHG. stûhha (MHG. stûche, mod.G. stauche), (O)Icel. stúka (? from Ger.).

  The form stook is orig. n. dial.: cf. hoose (hūs) = house. It has, however, become current in other dialects, though the regular forms stowk and stuck are also used.]

  1.  = SHOCK sb.¹ 1.

14[?].  Nom., in Wr.-Wülcker, 725/31. Hec congelima, a scowk [read stowk].

c. 1460.  Towneley Plays, xxx. 315. His hede is like a stowke burlyd as hoggys.

1494.  in W. Ross, Busby & Neighb., i. (1883), 22. Ilk person haffand ane pleugh—sall pay ane thraif of aits … and ilk half-pleugh a stouk.

1530.  Tindale, Exod. xxii. 6. Yf fyre breake out and catch in the thornes, so that the stoukes of corne … be consumed therwith.

1586.  Durham Wills (Surtees), II. 132. Otes, reaped anno 1586, ccxl threves, at v stookes a boll. 28 1. 16 s.

1620.  Markham, Farew. Husb., xiii. 103. [They] lay them in stoucks of twenty or of foure and twenty sheaues a piece.

c. 1730.  Ramsay, Fable, XIX. 68. They’ll start at winlestraes, yet never crook, When Interest bids, to lowp out o’er a stowk.

1785.  Burns, To J. M’Math, i. While at the stook the shearers cow’r To shun the bitter blaudin’ show’r.

1812.  Sir J. Sinclair, Syst. Husb. Scot., I. 333. Carts in this way will easily carry at once from ten to twenty stooks.

1827.  Hood, Ruth, iv. Thus she stood amid the stooks, Praising God with sweetest looks.

1865.  W. White, Eastern Eng., II. 64. The great undulating upland stretches away to the southwards field after field; here waving grain, there rows of ‘stooks.’

1894.  Times, 23 July, 13/1. The prospect which a fortnight ago seemed certain of seeing wheat in stook by the end of the month is rapidly vanishing.

1898.  J. A. Gibbs, Cotswold Village, 36. The vicar’s man went into the cornfields and placed a bough in every tenth ‘stook.’

1916.  Times, 4 Aug., 3/4. The cutting of winter oats is now common in the home counties, and the crops are bulking well in stook.

  attrib.  1743.  R. Maxwell, Sel. Trans. Soc. Improv. Agric. Scot., 328. The Lint is tied and set up Stook-ways.

1876.  Whitby Gloss., Stookbands, twisted straw ropes for sheaf-binding.

  ¶ b.  Used for: A pile, mass.

1865.  E. Burritt, Walk to Land’s End, 327. No furzy hill in the two counties wearing a stook of rocks on its head for hair-pins, could be better fitted [etc.].

1892.  Henley, Song of Sword, Lond. Voluntaries, i. 41. [The trees] stand Beggared and common, plain to all the land For stooks of leaves.

  c.  Stook of duds: see quot. 1901.

1831.  Carlyle, Sartor Res., III. x. In Scotland, again, I find them entitled Hallanshakers, or the Stook-of-Duds Sect; any individual communicant is named Stook-of-Duds (that is, Shock of Rags), in allusion, doubtless, to their professional Costume.

1901.  Eng. Dial. Dict., s.v. Stook sb.¹ 2, Stook-of-duds, a person so wrapped up as to suggest a shock of corn.

  2.  A bundle of straw. dial.

1571.  in Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1576, 709/1. 3 den. for thre stoukis (sarcinis) of custome stray.

1876.  Whitby Gloss., s.v., ‘A stook of straw,’ a bound bundle for thatching with.

1901.  Jane Barlow, Ghost-bereft, 86. The furze ’ill be thick as a stook of good thatch ivery day of the year.

  † 3.  A cock (of hay). Obs. rare.

1600.  Surflet, Country Farm, IV. vi. 638. You must make it [your hay] into a high cocke with a narrow top…; and although there come no raine, yet it will be good to make these great stoukes [orig. F. meulons].

  4.  Coal-mining. [Perh. a different word: cf. STOOP sb.¹] a. The portion of a pillar of coal left to support the roof.

1826–30.  T. Wilson, Pitman’s Play (1843), 59.

1840.  Civil Engin. & Arch. Jrnl., III. 68/2. In the Newcastle pits … blocks or ‘stooks’ of considerable strength are suffered to remain, for the purpose of protecting the colliers from the exfoliation of the roof.

1883.  Gresley, Gloss. Coal-mining, 242. Stook [Northumb. & Durham], a pillar of coal about four yards square, being the last portion of a full-sized pillar to be worked away in board and pillar workings.

1891.  Kipling, City Dreadf. Nt., 82. The chipped-away legs of the pillars [of coal] are called ‘stooks.’

  b.  Stook and coil, stook and feathers: see quots.

1808.  Bald, Gen. View Coal Trade Scot., 12 (Jam.). The mode then practised in sinking through hard strata, was by a set of tools termed stook and coil, or stook and feathers.… Two long slips of iron named the feathers, were placed down each side of the hole, and betwixt these a long tapering wedge, termed the stook was … driven down.

1883.  Gresley, Gloss. Coal-mining, 242. Stook and feather, a wedge for breaking down coal, worked by hydraulic power, the pressure being applied at the extreme inner end of the drilled hole.

1886.  J. Barrowman, Sc. Mining Terms, 64. Stook and Coil, or Stook and Feathers, a mode of wedging rocks.