sting

Definitions

noun an organ with a sharp point, used by an insect or scorpion to pierce the skin of its victim and
inject
a toxic
substance
into the victim’s bloodstream
noun the action of using a sting
noun a raised
area
on the skin produced by a sting
noun a small itchy lump that is the result of touching a plant such a nettle that irritates the skin
verb to use a sting to pierce a victim
verb to produce a small itchy lump on somebody’s skin

noun the piercing of the skin by an insect which passes a toxic
substance
into the bloodstream
verb to make a hole in the skin and pass a toxic
substance
into the blood

Sting comes

from

a prehistoric Germanic base *stengg-,

which

also

produced Swedish stinga and Danish stinge.

this

denoted ‘pierce

with

something sharp’ (‘He with a

spear

stung the

proud

Viking’, Battle of Maldon 993), a meaning which was not ousted in

English

by the

specialized application to insects until the late 15th century. Stingy (17^th c.) may be based on stinge ‘act of stinging’, a dialectal

noun

derived from Old English stingan ‘sting’; an underlying sense ‘having a sting, sharp’ is revealed in the dialectal sense ‘bad-tempered’.

4 definitions in context