Now only Sc. and dial. Also 7 stowe, 7–9 stoo; for other forms see Eng. Dial. Dict., s.v. Stove. [The various dialectal pronunciations—stau in Suffolk, stūv in Cumberland, stū in Sc.—seem to point to a ME. *stūven, f. *stūf a. ON. stúf-r, stump. (The mod. dial. STOW sb.4, however, is f. the verb.) Cf. ON. stýfa to cut off.) trans. To crop, cut close; esp. to cut off (ears), crop the ears of (a sheep); to lop off the branches of (a tree), or the leaves of (a plant); to trim (a hedge); to cut (a cheese) down to the rind.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VI. viii. 41. Half hedis spulȝeit, of stowit his eris tuay.
15[?]. Lyndesay [Satyre, 1939], in Bannatyne MS. (Hunter. Club), 503. Quhae devill maid yow a gentillmann wald nocht stow [1602 cut] your luggis?
1600. Pory, trans. Leo’s Africa, VI. 271. They will stow the palme-trees also to the very stocks.
1618. W. Lawson, Orch. & Gard. (1623), 15. If you use to stowe or top your tree too much … such a kinde of stowing is a kinde of smothering, or choaking the sap.
1641. Best, Farm. Bks. (Surtees), 80. Yow are neaver to carry a lambe but by the forelegges,… and in stowinge of them yow are … to double the eare eaven and to cutte of the toppes as rownde as yow can without forkinge.
1691. Ray, N. C. Words, 70. Stood: Cropt: Sheep are said to be stoo’d whose Ears are cropt, and Men who wear their Hair very short.
1712. J. James, trans. Le Blond’s Gardening, 173. By cutting the Palisade down to four or five Foot high, or by stowing it close with the Hedging-Bill.
a. 1774. Fergusson, Rising of Session, Poems (1845), 28. Atter their yokin, I wat weel, They ’ll stoo the kebbuck to the heel.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xlix. A drunken Jacobite laird wished for a Bothwell-Brigg whig, that ‘he might stow the lugs out of his head.’ Ibid. (1818), Rob Roy, xxxiv. I wad stow the tongue out o’ the head o’ ony o’ them that suld presume to say ower again ony speech held wi’ me in their presence.
1823. E. Moor, Suffolk Words, Stow, rhyming to now. To cut the boughs of a pollard tree close to the head.
a. 1846. Rodger, Poems (1897), 100. They pu’d their ain fruit, and they stoo’d their ain kail.
1903. Westworld. Gaz., 27 June, 5/2. Came astray, in March, rough ewe … stowed near ear, no other marks.
