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sty

Pronunciation: /staɪ/

The English word “sty” has 7 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A pen or enclosure for swine.
  2. A messy, dirty or debauched place.
  3. A ladder.
  4. An inflammation of the eyelid.

verb

  1. To place in, or as if in, a sty.
  2. To live in a sty, or any messy or dirty place.
  3. To ascend, rise up, climb.

Etymology

From Middle English sty, from Old English stī, stiġ (“sty, pen, a wooden enclosure; hall”, chiefly in compounds), from Proto-West Germanic *stī, 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”),…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.