stound

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /staʊnd/, /stuːnd/
• (US) IPA^(key): /staʊnd/, /stund/
• Rhymes: -aʊnd, -uːnd

Etymology 1

From Middle English stond, stounde, stound (“hour, time, season, moment”), from Old English stund (“a period of time, while, hour, occasion”), from Proto-West Germanic *stundu, from Proto-Germanic *stundō (“point in time, hour”), from Proto-Indo-European *stut- (“prop”), from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (“to stand”). Cognate with Dutch stond (“hour, time, moment”), German Stunde (“hour”), Danish stund (“time, while”), and Swedish stund (“time, while”). Compare Middle English stunden (“to linger, stay, remain for a while”), Icelandic stunda (“to frequent, pursue”). Related to stand.

Alternative forms

• stund, stoind, stoond, stoon, stoun, stuind (Scotland)

Noun

stound (plural stounds)

1. (chronology, obsolete or dialectal) An hour.
   • 1765, Percy's Reliques, The King and the Tanner of Tamworth (original license: 1564):

     What booth wilt thou have? our king reply'd / Now tell me in this stound

2. (obsolete) A tide, season.
3. (archaic or dialectal) A time, length of time, hour, while.
   • 1801, Walter Scott, The Talisman:

     He lay and slept, and swet a stound, / And became whole and sound.

4. (archaic or dialectal) A brief span of time, moment, instant.

   Listen to me a little stound.

   • 1883 [a. 1400], Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Clerk's Tale”, in Henry Morley, editor, Cassell's Library of English Literature‎^[1], volume 1, page 48:

     And in that same stound / All suddenly she swapt adown to ground.

5. A moment or instance of urgency; exigence.
6. (dialectal) A sharp or sudden pain; a shock, an attack.
   • 1857, Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture:

     No wonder that they cried unto the Lord, and felt a stound of despair shake their courage

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     ere the point arriued, where it ought, / That seuen-fold shield, which he from Guyon brought / He cast betwene to ward the bitter stound [...].

7. A stroke or blow (from an object or weapon); (by extension) a lashing; scourging
   • 1807, Sir Egerton Brydges, Censura Literaria:

     How many pipes, as many sounds Do still impart To your Sonne's hart / As many deadly wounds : How many strokes, as many stounds, Each stroke a dart, Each stound a smart, Poore captive me confounds.

   • 1843, Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, Proceedings of the Court of Inquiry appointed to inquire into the intended mutiny on board the United States Brig of War Somers, on the high seas:

     A colt is made of three stounds, I think; it is lighter, much, than the cat. The punishment with the colt is always given without stripping, over the clothes.

8. A fit, an episode or sudden outburst of emotion; a rush.
   • 1893, The Homoeopathic World:

     Several stounds of pain in the cleft between great and second toe (anterior tibial nerve). I forget which side, but I think it was the right. Slight pains in left temple, > pressure. Pain in upper part of right eyeball.

   • 1895, Mansie Wauch, The Life of Mansie Wauch: tailor in Dalkeith:

     […] and run away with him, almost whether he will or not, in a stound of unbearable love!

9. Astonishment; amazement.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Lightly he started up out of that stound.

   • 1720, John Gay, “Prologue”, in Poems on Several Occasions:

     we stood as in a stound, / And wet with tears, like dew, the ground

Derived terms

• ill stound
• in a stound
• stoundmeal
• umbestound
• umstound
• upon a stound

 

Translations

a moment or instance of urgency; exigence

• Russian: срочность (ru) f (sročnostʹ)

Verb

stound (third-person singular simple present stounds, present participle stounding, simple past and past participle stounded)

1. (obsolete or dialectal, intransitive) To hurt, pain, smart.
   • 1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, act IV, scene II, verses 93-95:

     Your wrath, weak boy ? Tremble at mine unless
     Retraction follow close upon the heels
     Of that late stounding insult […]

2. (obsolete or dialectal, intransitive) To be in pain or sorrow, mourn.
3. (obsolete or dialectal, intransitive) To long or pine after, desire.
   • 1823, Edward Moor, Suffolk words and phrases: or, An attempt to collect the lingual localisms of that county:

     Recently weaned children "stound after the breast."

Etymology 2

From Middle English stounden, stunden (“to linger, stay, remain for a while”), from Old English *stundian, from Proto-West Germanic *stundōn, from Proto-Germanic *stundōną. Cognate with German stunden (“to defer payment, give time to pay”), Icelandic stunda (“to frequent, pursue”). More at stand.

Verb

stound (third-person singular simple present stounds, present participle stounding, simple past and past participle stounded)

1. (intransitive, obsolete) To stand still; stop.
2. (intransitive, UK dialectal) To stop to listen; pause.

Noun

stound (plural stounds)

1. (UK dialectal) A stand; a stop.

Etymology 3

From Middle English stound, stonde, stoonde, ston, from Old English stond (“a stand”). Compare stand.

Noun

stound (plural stounds)

1. A receptacle for holding small beer.
   • 1987, Alastair Mackie, Ingaidherins: Selected Poems - Page 54:

     Will Ardnamurchan never end? We're four stounds in a metal box [...]

Anagrams

• Dutson, donuts, stunod

Middle English

Alternative forms

• stounde, stounte, stowunde, stund, stunde, stunt, stonde, stont, stonte, stunden

Etymology

From Old English stund (“a period of time, while, hour, occasion”), from Proto-Germanic *stundō (“point in time, hour”).

Noun

stound

1. A while: a short span of time.
2. Time, especially the proper time for doing something:
   • late 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Reeve's Tale, The Canterbury Tales, line 3992-3994:

     And on a day it happed, in a stounde,
     Sik lay the maunciple on a maladye;
     Men wenden wisly that he sholde dye.

     And on one day it happened, at a time,
     The manciple lay sick with a malady;
     People thought indeed that he should die.

   1. A moment, a chance, an opportunity.
   2. A season of the year.
   3. A canonical hour: one of the 3-hour divisions of the day, (Christianity) its divine office.
   4. An hour: one of the 24 divisions of the day.

Descendants

• English: stound
• Scots: stound

Adverb

stound

1. A while: for a short span of time.

References

• "stǒund(e" in the Middle English Dictionary

Scots

Etymology 1

From Middle English stound (“a moment”), from Old English stund, Old Norse stund.

Noun

stound (plural stounds)

1. A period of time, a moment.
2. (obsolete) A sudden pain, a pang.
   • 2011 [1513], Gavin Douglas, edited by Gordon Kendall, The Aeneid‎^[2], translation of original by Virgil, Book XI:

     Samyn with that word the reins slip let she, / And slade to ground (nocht of free volunty). / Then the cauld deith, and last stounds mortal, / The spirit dissolvit frae the course ower all;

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

3. (Middle Scots, obsolete) A stroke or blow (from an object or weapon).
   • 2008 November [c. 15th century CE], Robert Henryson, edited by Walter William Skeat, Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, volumes VII, Chaucerian and Other Pieces, Being A Supplement to the Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Cosimo, Inc.,, →ISBN, XVII. Robert Henryson: The Testament of Cresseid, page 344, line 538:

     'Quhat lord is yon?' quod sho, 'have ye na feill,
     Hes don to us so greit humanitie?'
     'Yes,' quod a lipper-man, 'I knaw him weill;
     Shir Troilus it is, gentill and free'
     Quhen Cresseid understude that it was he,
     Stiffer than steill thair stert ane bitter stound
     Throwout hir hart, and fell doun to the ground.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

4. (obsolete) A verbal attack, invective.

Verb

stound (third-person singular simple present stounds, present participle stoundin, simple past stoundit, past participle stoundit)

1. (transitive) To inflict pain on, to wound.
   • 1819, James Hogg, The Three Perils of Man – War, Women, and Witchcraft: A Border Tale, Charlie Scott's tale:

     I dinna think I clave his helmet, but I gae him sic a devil o' a knab on the temple, that he was stoundit, and fell as dead as a stane at my horse's feet.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. (intransitive) To hurt, to be painful.
   • 1844, Peter Livingston, “Oh! Winter is Come”, in Poems and Songs, Principally Relating to Scottish Manners and Customs‎^[3], page 135:

     Oh! weel my head aye be stoundin’ an sair, / An’ weel may my heart aye be beatin’ wi care, / An’ weel may the tear trickle down frae my e’e,

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

References

• stound n. in A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, Scottish Language Dictionaries, Edinburgh.
• stound v.¹ in A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, Scottish Language Dictionaries, Edinburgh.

Etymology 2

From Middle English astound, from astoned, past participle of the verb astone (“to astonish”).

Verb

stound (third-person singular simple present stounds, present participle stoundin, simple past stoundit, past participle stoundit)

1. To astound, to stupefy, to terrify
   • 1897, Ernest Hamilton, The Outlaws of the Marches‎^[4], page 157:

     Well, for ane wee minute I'll allow I was that ’stoundit ye might hae bound me wi’ a strae; then, the neist, I gruppit the red nag atwixt my knees and ram-stam intae the verra thick o’ them.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

References

• stound v.² in A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, Scottish Language Dictionaries, Edinburgh.