Pl. sties. Forms: 3 sti, 6, 7, 9 stie, 4– sty, stye. [OE. stí (in comb. stí-fearh ‘sty-pig’), prob. identical with stiʓ (ʓ from j), ? hall (cf. stiʓ-weard STEWARD sb.); corresp. to ON. stí neut., once (A′grip 26, 12th c.) in comb. svín-stí ‘swine-sty’ (Da. sti, svinsti; Norw. sti flock of sheep or goats, also ‘household work, esp. with regard to the feeding of the animals’; repr. OTeut. type *stijo-m, f. root *stĭ-: *stai-). A parallel formation, OTeut. *stijôn- wk. fem., is represented by ON. stía pen, fold, MSw. stía in svína stia (mod.Sw. svinstiga) and stíogalder ‘sty-pig,’ MLG. stege, sty, MDu. stije, swijn-stije (mod.Du. stijg). Cf. also OHG. stîga (MHG. stîge, but also stîje) cattle-stall, which is perh. cognate, but influenced in form by derivatives of the root *stĭʓ-: see STY sb.1, STY v.1]
1. An enclosed place where swine are kept, usually a low shed with an uncovered fore-court, a pigsty.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 128. Nout ase swin ipund ine sti uorte uetten.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Sompn. T., 121. He groneth lyk oure boor lith in oure sty.
c. 1400. Maundev. (Roxb.), xxxiv. 154. Þai … liffez in lust and lyking of þe flesch, as a swyne fedd in stye.
1573–80. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 32. Put bore in stie For Hallontide nie.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., I. 13. There is also a thirde stie … for the fatting of my Porkes.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., IV. xv. 62. Shall I abide In this dull world, which in thy absence is No better then a Stye?
1615. Chapman, Odyss., XIV. 21. Euery Sty Had roome and vse, for fifty Swine to lye.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 181/2. A Stie is the out-courts, or limits of the Swine coat in which they walk and eat their Meat; but generally we call both the Cote and its outlet a Stie.
1725. Pope, Odyss., X. 459. She … hast’ning to the styes set wide the door, Urg’d forth, and drove the bristly herd before.
1864. Miss S. P. Fox, Kingsbridge Estuary, viii. 91. His wife went as usual to feed her pig…. For some cause she entered the stye.
1882. Jessopp, Arcady, ii. (1887), 33. The tottering old crone … can give the alarm if the pig is in danger of breaking out of the sty.
2. transf. and fig. in opprobrious uses.
a. A human habitation (or sleeping-place) no better than a pigsty.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. i. IV. Handicrafts, 363. Some others yet more gross Their homely Sties in stead of wals inclose.
1684. Otway, Atheist, I. i. a foul-feeding Witch, that lived in a thatch’d Sty upon the neighb’ring Common.
a. 1687. Sir W. Petty, Pol. Anat. Irel. (1691), 14. Local Wealth I understand to be the building of 168,000 small Stone-wall Houses … instead of the lamentable Sties now in use.
1712. Motteux, Quix., III. ii. (1749), I. 115. By this time Sancho … was crept into his sty, where he did all he could to sleep.
1826. Renton, in Trans. Med.-Chirur. Soc. Edin., II. 376. The lower orders of the inhabitants, its principal victims, live huddled together in close and crowded sties.
b. An abode of bestial lust, or of moral pollution generally; a place inhabited or frequented by the morally degraded.
a. 1400. Fest. Church, 142, in Leg. Rood, App. 215. Þenk on helle stynkyng stye, Where goostis bren in bynde.
1599. Sandys, Europæ Spec. (1632), 36. On the one side of the Street a Cloyster of Virgins: on the other a stie of Courtizans.
1602. Shaks., Ham., III. iv. 94. Honying and making loue Ouer the nasty Stye.
1640. Grimston, Sp. Impeachment Abp. Laud (1641), 2. The Arch-Bishop of Canterbury … is the stye of all Pestilent filth, that hath infected the State, and Government of the Church and Common-wealth.
1645. Milton, Tetrach., 11. What is this but to abuse the sacred and misterious bed of marriage to be the compulsive stie of an ingratefull and malignant lust.
1648. Jenkyn, Blind Guide, i. 5. Could more be said for the removall of any stewes or stie of sin?
1790. Burke, Refl. Fr. Rev. (ed. 2), 238. The painted booths and sordid sties of vice and luxury.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., iii. I. 403. But whatever our dramatists touched they tainted. In their imitations the houses of Calderon’s stately and highspirited Castilian gentlemen became sties of vice.
1855. Motley, Dutch Rep., I. Introd. § 14. 89. A people which had neither sunk to sleep in the lap of material prosperity, nor abased itself in the sty of ignorance and political servitude.
3. Comb.
1611. Cotgr., Bacquier … a stye-fed hog.
1864. Trevelyan, Compet. Wallah (1866), 33. No pork appears on a Calcutta table except such as has been sty-fed.
1917. Times, 22 March, 7/2. French fields revive and the defilers flee Sty-ward driven back.
