sty.
A pen or enclosure for swine.
Meaning & usage
A pen or enclosure for swine.
A messy, dirty or debauched place.
Where this word comes from
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”), Icelandic stía (“a kennel”).
To place in, or as if in, a sty.
To live in a sty, or any messy or dirty place.
Where this word comes from
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”), Icelandic stía (“a kennel”).
To ascend, rise up, climb.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English stien, stiȝen, stighen, from Old English stīgan (“to go; ascend, mount”), from Proto-West Germanic *stīgan, from Proto-Germanic *stīganą, from Proto-Indo-European *steygʰ-. Cognate with Dutch stijgen, German steigen, Danish stige, Norwegian Bokmål stige, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish stiga, Old Norse stíga.
A ladder.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English stien, stiȝen, stighen, from Old English stīgan (“to go; ascend, mount”), from Proto-West Germanic *stīgan, from Proto-Germanic *stīganą, from Proto-Indo-European *steygʰ-. Cognate with Dutch stijgen, German steigen, Danish stige, Norwegian Bokmål stige, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish stiga, Old Norse stíga.
An inflammation of the eyelid.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English styanye, mistaken as "sty on eye" yet composed of Old English stīġend (“sty”, literally “riser”), agent noun from stīgan (“to rise”) + Middle English yë (“eye”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.