Also 6, 9 stole. [f. STOOL sb.]
1. trans. To put or set (a person) on a stool.
a. To condemn (a person) to the stool (of repentance), nonce-use. In quot. absol.
1632. Hickeringill, Hist. Whiggism, II. 38. Horning, Cursing, Damning, Imprisoning, Stooling or Fooling upon the Stool of Repentance.
b. West Africa. (Cf. STOOL sb. 1 f.)
1898. R. A. Freeman, Trav. Ashanti, i. 3. Until the king [of Ashanti] had been enthroned on the gold stool his title was not officially recognised…. But the ceremony of ‘stooling’ a new king was one that involved considerable expense.
2. intr. To evacuate the bowels; also trans., to evacuate as excrement.
1545. Raynalde, Byrth Mankynde, P j. The greate labour and payne the whiche the partie hath in … enforsynge her selfe other to stole or to make water.
1843. R. J. Graves, Syst. Clin. Med., v. 57. They are … almost constantly confined to bed except when rising to stool.
3. Of a plant: To throw up young shoots or stems; of corn, grass, herbage, to throw out lateral shoots producing a thick head of stems or foliage. Also with out, forth.
1789. Trans. Soc. Arts, I. 260. Some sorts of Cotton did not rattoon or stool so well as others.
1790. W. H. Marshall, Midl., II. 443. To Stool; to ramify as corn.
1795. Vancouver, Agric. Essex, 152. Strong and luxuriant shoots stool forth.
1830. M. T. Sadler, Law Popul., I. 93. Wheat is one of those plants which, according to the phraseology of agriculturists, stools; that is, throws out lateral roots capable of producing separate stems.
1844. H. Stephens, Bk. Farm, III. 857. New grass, if moderately eaten down in spring, stools out, and affords a thicker cutting at hay time.
1853. G. Johnston, Nat. Hist. E. Bord., I. 121. The herbage … does not spread nor stool upon the ground.
1869. Blackmore, Lorna Doone, xxxviii. I worked very hard in the copse of young ash,… cutting out the saplings where they stooled too close together.
fig. 1835. Tait’s Mag., II. 491. From the original hardy stem of the Surrey yeomen, this vigorous branch ‘stooled out,’ and put forth arms.
4. trans. To entice (wild-fowl) by means of a decoy-bird; also intr. (of a bird) to come (well) to a decoy. U.S.
1859. Bartlett, Dict. Amer. (ed. 2), 452. Stooling, decoying ducks or other fowls by the means of ‘stools.’
1874. J. W. Long, Amer. Wild-fowl, xviii. 209. Widgeon … stool well to almost any decoys.
5. Mining. To work (a vein). Cf. STOOL sb. 12.
1824. Mander, Derbysh. Miner’s Gloss., 69. Then it is common to say, the vein is Stoled, or Stooled, ten or twelve fathoms.
