stifle

stifle¹ joint in a horse's hind leg

Etymology

The word for the joint in the hind leg is inherited from Middle English stifle, also stiful,^[2][3] of unknown origin.^[4][5][6][7] The Middle English Dictionary thinks it probably French, comparing Old French estival (“boot”) and Anglo-Norman estive (“leg”);^[2] the Anglo-Norman noun is recorded from the early 12th century in the sense of the lower leg or shin.^[8] The American Heritage Dictionary takes it as possibly from Old French estivel (“pipe, leg, tibia”), from Latin stīpes (“stick”),^[9] and Weekley also tentatively compared the French word for a boot, the source of German Stiefel.^[10] The OED calls a connection with stiff, often assumed, very doubtful,^[4][11] and Dictionary.com leaves the origin open.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The joint between the thigh and the lower leg of a quadruped: about 1330, in the romance Sir Tristrem, where the hunter cuts up a deer down to the stifles.^[4][2] Weekley dated the word to about 1320,^[10] and Merriam-Webster gives the 14th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its anatomical sense, used mainly of horses and dogs.^[4][3] A 15th-century treatise on the diseases of horses already prescribes for a hurt in the stifle,^[2] and in 1566 Blundeville used stifle for a dislocation or sprain of the joint, a sense that soon died out,^[4][13] while the verb to stifle, to lame a horse in that joint, appeared in the same book and is still used, usually in the passive.^[4][13][5] Compounds such as stifle-bone and stifle joint followed from the 17th century.^[14][3]

Timeline

• c. 1330 – the joint between the femur and the tibia of a quadruped.^[4][2]
• 1566 – dislocation or sprain of this joint (obsolete by 1587).^[4][13]
• 1566 – verb, to lame an animal in the stifle joint.^[4][13]

Meanings

Noun

1. The joint above the hock in the hind leg of a horse, dog or other quadruped, corresponding to the human knee; also called the stifle joint.^[3][4][5]
2. (obsolete, 1566–87) Dislocation or lameness of this joint.^[4][5]

Verb

1. To injure an animal in the stifle joint; usually in the passive: The mare was stifled in a fall.^[3][4][5]

stifle² to smother, suppress

Etymology

The verb meaning to smother is inherited from Middle English stuflen, also stufflen, later stiflen,^[3][15][2] of uncertain or obscure origin.^[4][15][16] Most dictionaries connect it with Old French estouffer (“to stifle, smother”), modern French étouffer:^{[4][16][17][3]} Merriam-Webster calls it probably a modification of the French verb,^[3] and the Shorter Oxford perhaps a frequentative of it.^[5][7] The Middle English Dictionary compares instead the Middle English verb stuffen with a frequentative suffix,^[2] and Weekley allowed either a frequentative of stuff or the French verb.^[10] The i of the later form has been put down to the influence of Old Norse stífla (“to dam up”) by the American Heritage Dictionary and Barnhart,^[9][15] and Dictionary.com derives the word from the Norse verb outright,^[12] but the OED rejects that view on grounds of both form and sense.^[4] The French verb is itself of uncertain origin, perhaps Germanic: Etymonline and Barnhart compare Old High German stopfōn (“to plug up, stuff”).^[16][15] Ayto traces it to Vulgar Latin *extuffō, perhaps a blend of *extūfō (“to take a steam bath”), the source of stew, and Late Latin stuppō (“to stop up”), the source of stop and of the verb stuff.^[18]

Earliest recorded meaning

To suffocate in water, drown: before 1387, in Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon, where a monk falls from a bridge into the water and was i-stufled.^{[4][2][15][10]}

Semantic evolution

The first senses were physical: to drown, then, from about 1400, in the Brut chronicle, to suffer or be overcome by heat and lack of air.^[2][4] The breath and the voice followed: from 1496 the verb meant to keep back a cry, a sob or a cough,^[4][15] and later, from the early 16th century, to kill by stopping the breath.^[4] Figurative uses grew in the late 16th and 17th centuries: to conceal or keep a fact from becoming known (1577),^[15][13] to hold back a feeling (1610) and to crush or suppress something so that it cannot work or spread (1621).^[13][16] Johnson (1755) defined it first as to oppress or kill by closeness of air, to suffocate, and quoted Shakespeare.^[19] A smothered flame was stifled from 1726,^[13] and sounds made inaudible from 1833.^[4][16] A jocular or cant use, to slip money secretly into someone's hand, is recorded in 1604.^[13][20] The noun stifle has been an asthmatic complaint (1398) and, rarely, the fact of stifling or a stifling atmosphere (1823);^[4][2][3] in Scotland it was also the fumes of a fire.^[5] In Norfolk and Suffolk the verb meant to ruin.^[21]

Timeline

• before 1387 – to drown, to suffocate by immersion (obsolete by 1705).^[4][2]
• 1398 – noun, an asthmatic complaint (obsolete).^[4][2]
• c. 1400 – to affect with difficulty in breathing, especially through heat.^[4][2]
• 1496 – to keep back the breath, a cry or a cough.^[4] Barnhart dates this sense about 1495.^[15]
• before 1535 – to kill by stopping respiration.^[4]
• 1577 – to conceal, to keep from becoming known.^[13][15] Etymonline dates the sense to the 1570s.^[16]
• 1594 – intransitive, to be suffocated, to feel unable to breathe.^[13]
• 1621 – to crush, suppress, prevent from spreading.^[13][16]
• 1726 – to smother a flame.^[13]
• 1823 – noun, the condition of being stifled.^[4]
• 1833 – to make a sound mute or inaudible.^[4][16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To hold back or suppress a sound or a feeling: She stifled a laugh behind her hand.^[17][9][4]
2. To put an end to something by force; to crush or stamp out: The new law stifled public debate.^[17][12][4]
3. To kill by stopping the breath; to smother or suffocate.^{[17][9][3][4]}
4. To feel, or make someone feel, unable to breathe, as in hot or close air.^[17][12][4]
5. To smother a flame or a fire.^[4][3]
6. (obsolete, before 1387–1705) To kill by drowning.^[4][3]

Noun

1. A stifling, suffocating atmosphere.^[3][4]

Word family

• stifler
• stifling
• stiflingly