sty

• IPA^(key): /staɪ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪ
• Homophone: stye

From Middle English sty, from Old English stī, stiġ (“sty, pen, a wooden enclosure; hall”, chiefly in compounds), from Proto-Germanic *stiją. Cognate with German Stiege (“wooden crate”), dialectal German Steige (“hen-coop”), Danish sti (“sty, enclosure for swine, sheep, hens, etc.”), Swedish stia (“sty for pigs, geese, etc.”), Norwegian sti (“flock of sheep”), Icelandic stía (“a kennel”).

sty (plural sties or styes)

1. A pen or enclosure for swine.
2. (figurative) A messy, dirty or debauched place.
   • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC:

     To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.

• (enclosure for swine): pigpen, pigsty
• (messy or dirty place): hovel, pigsty

sty (third-person singular simple present sties, present participle stying, simple past and past participle stied)

1. (transitive) To place in, or as if in, a sty.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     and here you sty me
     In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
     The rest o' the island

2. (transitive) To live in a sty, or any messy or dirty place.

From Middle English stien, stiȝen, stighen, from Old English stīgan (“to go; ascend, mount”), from Proto-West Germanic *stīgan, from Proto-Germanic *stīganą, from Proto-Indo-European *steygʰ-. Cognate with Dutch stijgen, German steigen, Danish stige, Norwegian Bokmål stige, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish stiga, Old Norse stíga.

• stee, stie, stigh, stye

sty (third-person singular simple present sties, present participle stying, simple past and past participle stied)

1. (obsolete) To ascend, rise up, climb. [9th–17th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     The beast impatient of his smarting wound, / And of so fierce and forcible despight, / Thought with his wings to stye aboue the ground [...].

   • 1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “Muiopotmos, or The Fate of the Butterflie”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], →OCLC:

     From this lower tract he dared to stie up to the clowdes.

   • 1621, Richard Montague, Diatribae upon the first part of the late History of Tithes:

     Led along, as some Creatures are, by the Noses, and voluntarily hood-winked; or like seeled Doves, sty up, you know not whither, nor how far.

   • 1652, Edward Benlowes, Theophila, or Love's Sacrifice:

     That she might sty to the seat of Beatifick Mirth.

• styan
• stirrup

• stile

sty (plural sties)

1. (British, dialectal) A ladder.

From Middle English styanye, mistaken as "sty on eye" yet composed of Old English stīġend (“sty”, literally “riser”), agent noun from stīgan (“to rise”) + Middle English yë (“eye”).

• stye

sty (plural sties)

1. (pathology) An inflammation of the eyelid.

• YTS

Inherited from Old English stiġ, stī, from Proto-West Germanic *stij, from Proto-Germanic *stiją.

• stye, styȝe

• IPA^(key): /stiː/

sty (plural styes)

1. A pigsty (pen or set of pens for pigs)
2. (rare) Any other crude dwelling or abode.

• English: sty

• “stī, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-08.

Inherited from Old English stīġ, from Proto-West Germanic *stīgu, from Proto-Germanic *stīgō.

• sti, stie, stiȝe, stiȝhe, stiyhe, stye

• IPA^(key): /stiː/

sty (plural styes or stiȝen)

1. A path, track or street.
2. (figurative) One's chosen pathway or choices in life.
3. (figurative, rare) A short narrative.

• “stī(e, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-08.