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stoop

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EnglishEdit

PronunciationEdit

Etymology 1Edit

Borrowed from Dutch stoep (“platform", "pavement”). Cognate with English "step".

NounEdit

stoop (plural stoops)

  1. (chiefly Northeastern US, chiefly New York, also Canada) The staircase and landing or porch leading to the entrance of a residence.
    • 1856 James Fenimore Cooper, Satanstoe or The Littlepage Manuscripts: A Tale of the Colony (London, 1856) page 110
      Nearly all the houses were built with their gables to the streets and each had heavy wooden Dutch stoops, with seats, at its door.
    • 1905 Carpentry and Building, vol. 27 (January 1905), NY: David Williams Company, page 2
      ...the entrance being at the side of the house and reached by a low front stoop with four or five risers...
  2. (US) The threshold of a doorway, a doorstep.
    • 1902, Gustav Kobbé, Signora: a child of the opera house, page 15:
      A short flight of iron steps leads up to it and a storm door is built over the stoop, forming a little vestibule, and serving to keep out the gusts.
    • 1975, Laurraine Goreau, Just Mahalia, Baby: The Mahalia Jackson Story, page 248:
      You better hurry up and get strong, if you going to carry me across the stoop.
    • 1997, Peter S. Feibleman, A place without twilight‎[1], page 15:
      Holding her breath while she set one foot over the stoop and followed it up into the house
    • 1999, Nora Gallagher, Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith, page 115:
      She grins at me and lifts her walker over the stoop.
SynonymsEdit
TranslationsEdit

Etymology 2Edit

From Old English stūpian (“to bow, to bend”). Compare steep. Cognate with Dutch stuipen (“to bend the upper part of the body forward and downward”).

VerbEdit

stoop (third-person singular simple present stoops, present participle stooping, simple past and past participle stooped)

  1. To bend the upper part of the body forward and downward to a half-squatting position; crouch.
    He stooped to tie his shoe-laces.
    • 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, The House Behind the Cedars, Chapter I,
      Their walk had continued not more than ten minutes when they crossed a creek by a wooden bridge and came to a row of mean houses standing flush with the street. At the door of one, an old black woman had stooped to lift a large basket, piled high with laundered clothes.
    • 2010 December 28, Kevin Darlin, “West Brom 1 - 3 Blackburn”, in BBC‎[2]:
      Pedersen took a short corner and El-Hadji Diouf was given time to send in a cross for Mame Diouf to stoop and head home from close range.
  2. To lower oneself; to demean or do something below one's status, standards, or morals.
    Can you believe that a salesman would stoop so low as to hide his customers' car keys until they agreed to the purchase?
  3. Of a bird of prey: to swoop down on its prey.
    • 1882 [1875], Thomas Bewick, James Reiveley, William Harvey, The Parlour Menagerie, 4th ed., p. 63:
      Presently the bird stooped and seized a salmon, and a violent struggle ensued.
  4. (transitive) To cause to incline downward; to slant.
    to stoop a cask of liquor
  5. (transitive) To cause to submit; to prostrate.
    • Chapman
      Many of those whose states so tempt thine ears / Are stooped by death; and many left alive.
  6. To yield; to submit; to bend, as by compulsion; to assume a position of humility or subjection.
    • Dryden
      Mighty in her ships stood Carthage long, […] / Yet stooped to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong.
    • Addison
      These are arts, my prince, / In which your Zama does not stoop to Rome.
  7. To descend from rank or dignity; to condescend.
    • Goldsmith
      She stoops to conquer.
    • Francis Bacon
      Where men of great wealth stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly.
  8. To degrade.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)
SynonymsEdit

(bend oneself forwards and downwards):

Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
to bend the upper part of the body forward and downward

NounEdit

stoop (plural stoops)

  1. A stooping, bent position of the body
    The old man walked with a stoop.
    • 2011, Phil McNulty, Euro 2012: Montenegro 2-2 England [3]
      Theo Walcott's final pass has often drawn criticism but there could be no complaint in the 11th minute when his perfect delivery to the far post only required a stoop and a nod of the head from Young to put England ahead.
  2. An accelerated descent in flight, as that for an attack.
    • 1819, Washington Irving, Bracebridge Hall: Hawking:
      At length the hawk got the upper hand, and made a rushing stoop at her quarry
Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
body position

Etymology 3Edit

From Middle English, from Old Norse stolpe

Alternative formsEdit

NounEdit

stoop (plural stoops)

  1. (dialect) A post or pillar, especially a gatepost or a support in a mine.
Derived termsEdit

Etymology 4Edit

Old English stope

Alternative formsEdit

NounEdit

stoop (plural stoops)

  1. A vessel for holding liquids; a flagon.
    • Shakespeare
      Fetch me a stoop of liquor.

AnagramsEdit

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