sty

• IPA^(key): /staɪ/
• Rhymes: -aɪ

From Middle English sty, from Old English stī, stiġ (“sty, pen, a wooden enclosure; hall”, chiefly in compounds), from Proto-Germanic *stiją. Cognate with German Steige (“hen-coop”), Danish sti (“enclosure for swine, sheep, hens, etc.”), Swedish stia (“sty for pigs, geese, etc.”), Norwegian sti (“flock of sheep”), Icelandic stía (“a kennel”).

sty (plural sties)

1. A pen or enclosure for swine.
2. (figuratively) A messy, dirty or debauched place.
   • Milton

     To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.

• (enclosure for swine): pigpen, pigsty
• (messy or dirty place): hovel, pigsty

sty (third-person singular simple present sties, present participle stying, simple past and past participle stied)

1. To place in, or as if in, a sty
   • William Shakespeare, The Tempest Act I, Scene II:

     and here you sty me
     In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
     The rest o' the island

2. To live in a sty, or any messy or dirty place

From Middle English stien, stiȝen, from Old English stīġan (“to go; ascend, mount”), from Proto-Germanic *stīganą, from Proto-Indo-European *steygʰ-. Cognate with Dutch stijgen, German steigen, Norwegian Bokmål stige, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish stiga, Old Norse stíga.

• stee, stie, stigh, stye

sty (third-person singular simple present sties, present participle stying, simple past and past participle stied)

1. (obsolete) To ascend, rise up, climb. [9th-17th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.xi:

     The beast impatient of his smarting wound, / And of so fierce and forcible despight, / Thought with his wings to stye aboue the ground [...].

   • Spenser (1590)

     From this lower tract he dared to sty up to the clouds.

   • Mountagu Diatribe (1621)

     Led along, as some Creatures are, by the Noses, and voluntarily hood-winked; or like seeled Doves, sty up, you know not whither, nor how far.

   • Benlowes (1652)

     That she might sty to the seat of Beatifick Mirth.

• styan
• stirrup

• stile

sty (plural sties)

1. (Britain, dialectal) A ladder.

Probably a back-formation from styany, mistaken for "sty-on-eye" but correctly from Middle English styany, composed of styan ("sty"; from Old English stīġende, present participle of stīgan (“to rise”)) + y (“eye”).

• stye

sty (plural sties)

1. (medicine) An inflammation of the eyelid.

• YTS

From Old English stiġ, stī, from Proto-Germanic *stiją.

• stye, styȝe

• IPA^(key): /stiː/

sty (plural styes)

1. A pigsty (pen or set of pens for pigs)
2. (rare) Any other crude dwelling or abode.

• English: sty

• “stī (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-08.

From Old English stīġ, from Proto-Germanic *stīgō.

• sti, stie, stye, stiyhe, stiȝe, stiȝhe

• IPA^(key): /stiː/

sty (plural styes or stiȝen)

1. A path, track or street.
2. (figuratively) One's chosen pathway or choices in life.
3. (figuratively, rare) A short narrative.

• “stī(e (n.(1))” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-08.