Now dial. Also 8 stownd. [App. f. STOUND v.2; but perh. a use of STOUND sb.1 2 b, modified by association with the vb.] A state of stupefaction or amazement.
1567. Golding, Ovid’s Met., XIII. (1593), 298. [He] raised soberly his eye-lids from the ground (On which he had a little while them pitched in a stound).
1596. Spenser, F. Q., IV. vi. 12. Lightly he started up out of that stound.
1610. Fletcher, Faithf. Sheph., II. ii. (1634), D 1. Whilst the sound Breakes against heaven, and drives into a stound The amazed Shepherd.
1667. Pepys, Diary, 3 April. This put us all into a stound.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 120. We having warily held, the stirr’d body not to be at rest, or in a stound or pause at all, but alwayes to be either stirring or bearing.
1677. Gilpin, Dæmonol. (1867), 440. Though at first some good men were overawed to … recant,… yet … after the stound and dazzle of the temptation was over, they recoiled so resolutely upon them, that [etc.].
1714. Gay, Sheph. Week, Prol. 23.
| While thus we stood as in a stound, | |
| And wet with Tears, like Dew, the Ground, | |
| Full soon by Bonefire and by Bell | |
| We learnt our Liege was passing well. |
1767. Mickle, Concub., II. Introd. In musefull Stownd Syr Martyn rews His Youthhedes thoughtlesse Stage.
1819. W. Tennant, Papistry Storm’d (1827), 194. Flew frae ae pillar to the tither, Syn in a stound did drap.
1859. Miss Mulock, Life for Life, II. 184. I laugh now—I could have laughed then, the minute after, to recollect what a ‘stound’ it gave us both, Colin and me, this utterly improbable and ridiculous tale.
