stick

Definitions

General English

  • noun

    anything

    long and

    thin

  • verb to

    attach

    something

    somewhere

    firmly

    ,

    especially

    with

    glue

  • verb to be

    fixed

    or not to be

    able

    to move
  • verb to push

    something

    into

    something
  • verb to

    stay

    in a place
  • verb to

    put up with

Aviation

Construction

  • A waxed paper cartridge containing an

    explosive

    , usually 1-1/8" x 8" (3 x 20 cm).
  • A rigid bar fastened to the bucket and hinged at the boom of a

    power shovel

    or a

    backhoe

    .

Cricket

  • noun a stump, specifically one of the

    stumps

    making up the batsman’s wicket
    Citation ‘In these particular games [the

    bodyline

    Tests] it is noticeable that our bowlers have hit the sticks so often’     (Cricketer Spring Annual 1933)
    Citation ‘Curtly Ambrose, apparently distressed by the lack of fighting spirit in his side, smashed down the two remaining stumps after his leg stick was removed by Chris Lewis’ (Ted Corbett, Sportstar [Chennai] 30 April 1994)
  • verb (of a possible catch) to be successfully held by a fielder
    Citation ‘If these two catches had stuck Australia would have been 32 for three’ (Henry Blofeld, Guardian 10 December 1983)

Medical

  • verb to attach something, to fix things together, e.g. with glue

Military

  • noun a long thin piece of wood, which is broken or cut from a branch of a tree
  • noun a quantity of bombs, which are released by an

    aircraft

    at the same time
  • noun a group of paratroopers, who jump out of an

    aircraft

    during a single pass over the

    drop zone

    (DZ)

Slang

  • noun a joint, reefer (cannabis cigarette). A term which was fairly widespread among smokers of the drug (beatniks, prisoners, etc.) until the mid-1960s, when joint and spliff largely supplanted it.
  • noun chastisement, physical or verbal punishment. Originally implying a literal thrashing with a stick or cane, then generalised to any violent assault, the expression is now used, especially by middle-class speakers, to encompass verbal abuse, denigration or nagging.
  • noun a police truncheon
  • noun an excessively serious, dull or repressed person
  • noun a pickpocket’s associate or decoy.

Sports

  • noun the implement with which the ball is struck in some sports, e.g.

    hockey

    and

    lacrosse

Travel

  • noun something long and thin

Origin & History of “stick”

Stick ‘piece of wood’ (OE) and stick ‘fix, adhere’ (OE)

come

from

the

same

Germanic source: the base *stik-, *stek-, *stak- ‘pierce, prick, be sharp’ (

which

also

produced

English

attach,

stake

,

stitch

, stockade, and stoke).

this

in turn went back to the Indo-European base *stig-, *steig-, whose

other

descendants

include

Greek stígma (source of English stigma) and Latin stīgāre ‘prick, incite’ (source of English instigate (16th c.)) and stinguere ‘prick’ (source of English distinct, extinct, and instinct). From the Germanic base was derived a

verb

, source of English stick, which originally meant ‘pierce’. The notion of ‘piercing’ led on via ‘thrusting something sharp into something’ and ‘becoming fixed in something’ to ‘adhering’. The same base produced the

noun

*stikkon, etymologically a ‘pointed’ piece of wood, for piercing, which has

become

English stick. Yet another derivative of the base was Old English sticels ‘spine, prickle’, which forms the

first

element of the fish-name stickleback (15th c.) – etymologically ‘prickly back’.
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