stook
/stʊk/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.35 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A pile or bundle, especially of straw.
noun
A group of six or eight sheaves of grain stacked to dry vertically in a rectangular arrangement at harvest time, largely obsolete since the advent of combine harvesters and powered grain driers (mid 20th century).
Example Sentences
- "And on the road home they lay among the stooks and maybe Ellison did this and that to make sure of getting her, he was fair desperate for any woman by then."
- "The wheat, tawny with ripeness, had been cut and stood in tented stooks about the fields, while a few ghostly poppies lingered at the edge of the path."
- "Loud was the laughter at this and other remarks about nailing "stooks" (silk pocket handkerchiefs), "clouts" (cotton ditto), german sausages, &c."
Etymology
From Middle English stowk, stouke, stouc, from or cognate with Middle Low German stûke (“bundle of grain”), from Middle Low German stûken (“to push, bump, compress”), from Old Saxon *stūkan, from Proto-Germanic *stūkaną (“to be stiff, push”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tewg- (“to pound, push, beat”). The modern vocalism is of Northern dialectal origin (for expected stuck; compare duck, puck, and suck). Cognate with West Frisian stûkje (“to pile up, stop”), Dutch stuiken (“to bundle, stamp”), German stauchen (“to compress”), Swedish stuka (“to rick, wrench, upset”), Norwegian Nynorsk stauka (“to whack, chop”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: stowk, stûke, stûken, *stūkan, *stūkaną, *(s)tewg-