stint

Pronunciation

• /stɪnt/^[1]

stint¹ limit; be sparing; period of work

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English stinten (“to cease, to cause to stop”), also stenten and stunten,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English styntan (“to blunt, make dull”).^{[5][6][7][8][9]} The simple Old English verb is recorded only once, in a glossary rendering Latin hebetō, but the compounds āstyntan (“to blunt, to check, stop”), ætstyntan and forstyntan (“to blunt”) are commoner.^[5][10] It goes back to Proto-Germanic *stuntijaną,^[6][7] a causative of the adjective Proto-Germanic *stuntaz (“short”), seen in Old English stunt (“dull, foolish”), Middle High German stunz (“blunt, short”) and Old Norse stuttr (“short, scant”);^{[5][3][11][12]} the Old English verb corresponds to Old Norse stytta (“to shorten”).^{[5][6][13][7]} The OED leaves open whether the Middle English senses grew from unrecorded Old English uses or reflect Norse influence,^[5] and the Shorter Oxford thinks some senses were probably influenced by the Norse verb.^[14] Etymonline and Klein trace the family to Proto-Indo-European *(s)teud- (“to push, strike”),^[6][11] but Kroonen holds that link cannot be maintained and finds no further etymology for the adjective.^[15] The word is related to stunt and, according to Etymonline, to stutter.^[6][11][5] The OED notes that it was partly confused with the unrelated verb stent, since both had the forms stent and stint.^[5][16] The noun is formed from the verb in Middle English.^[5][2][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

To cease action, leave off, desist: about 1175, in the Ormulum.^[5][7][9] In Old English the verb had meant to make blunt or dull.^[5][14][9]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the verb mostly meant to stop: to cease doing something, to come to a halt, of a stream to stop flowing, and transitively to make someone stop.^[5][2] Chaucer used it about a hundred times for stopping, leaving off or refraining.^[17] The sense "to limit, confine" is first recorded in 1513, and "to limit to a certain share or allowance" in 1567,^[7] which led to "to be sparing or frugal", dated by Etymonline to 1722.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as "limit; bound; restraint".^[18] The noun at first meant a pause or stop (about 1330), especially a check when hounds lost the scent;^[5][2] from the mid-15th century it meant a fixed or allotted amount,^[6][5] and by the 1520s an allotted portion of work,^[6][7] the source of the modern sense of a spell of work or duty.^[14][13] The phrase without stint, without limit, dates from 1651.^[5] In British use a stint was also the number of cattle allowed to graze a common pasture.^[3][14] In Scottish, Irish and northern English dialect the verb was used of limiting someone's food.^[19]

Timeline

• c. 1175 – to cease, leave off, in the Ormulum.^[5][7]
• c. 1275 – of things or conditions, to come to an end (obsolete by 1681).^[5]
• c. 1330 – noun, a pause or stop (obsolete by 1613).^[5][2]
• 1338 – to make someone stop.^[5]
• 1447 – noun, an allotted amount or allowance.^[5]
• 1513 – to limit or confine.^[7]
• before 1530 – noun, an allotted portion of work.^[7]
• 1567 – to limit to a certain share or allowance.^[7]
• 1651 – without stint, without limit.^[5]
• 1722 – to be sparing or frugal with something.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A period of time spent at a particular job or activity; a shift or spell: a two-year stint as a reporter in Cairo.^[13][14]
2. An allotted amount of work; a task.^[13][3][14]
3. Limitation or restraint, especially in the phrase without stint.^[3][5][13]
4. (British) The number of animals allowed to graze a common pasture, or the right to graze them.^[3][14]
5. (obsolete) A pause or stop.^[3][13][5]

Verb

1. To be frugal or sparing with something; to give too little of it: She never stinted on the butter.^[13][3]
2. To restrict someone to a small share or allowance.^[3][5]
3. (archaic) To stop or check something.^[13][3][5]

Word family

• stinter
• stintingly
• stintedly
• stintedness
• stintless
• unstinting

stint² small sandpiper

Etymology

The bird name is inherited from Middle English stint, also stinte,^[2][3] of unknown origin.^{[3][14][5][20]} The MED nevertheless gives an Old English source,^[2] and Köbler lists an Old English stint (“sandpiper”) beside the adjective Proto-Germanic *stuntaz (“short”);^[21] Collins too takes it as Old English, related to Middle High German stinz (“small salmon”) and to stunt.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small sandpiper eaten as food: 1452, in the menu of a feast, among venison, quails and larks.^[2] The OED's first record is from 1519,^[5] and Merriam-Webster dates the word to the 15th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The OED describes it as a common name for any of the smaller sandpipers, especially the dunlin, and in some places for the sanderling.^[5][14] From 1843 it was used with distinguishing words for particular species.^[5] The MED notes that the word also occurs in English place names.^[2] In Northumberland, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Sussex dialect a stint was the dunlin.^[19]

Timeline

• 1452 – a small sandpiper eaten as food.^[2]
• 1519 – first record in the OED.^[5]
• 1843 – with distinguishing words, for particular species.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of several small sandpipers, such as the little stint or Temminck's stint.^[3][14][5]

Word family

• little stint
• Temminck's stint

Related words

• stunt
• stutter
• stent

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
16. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
17. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
18. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
19. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
20. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
21. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling