ston

Forms

ston^[1] MED headword stōn; also stone, stoon, stan(e), northern stain(e), early stoan; plural ston(e)s, stonus, early stanes.^[2] Northern stan, stane beside southern and Midland ston, Orm keeps stan.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old English stān, from Proto-West Germanic *stain, from Proto-Germanic *stainaz (“stone”).^[1][2][5] The Germanic relatives include Gothic 𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌹𐌽𐍃 (stains), Old Norse steinn, Old Saxon stēn and Old High German stein.^[6][7]

The Old English long /aː/ was rounded in the South and the Midlands to an open /ɔː/, written ⟨o⟩, early also ⟨oa⟩ and later ⟨oo⟩, so that Old English stān became ston.^[3] Jordan dates the change to the early twelfth century in the West Saxon area and Kent, the second half of the century in the southern Midlands, and the thirteenth century for the whole Midlands, up to the Ribble and the lower Humber.^[3] The North kept /aː/, so northern texts have stan and stane, as does Scots stane, Orm, in Lincolnshire, still writes the ⟨a⟩ spelling.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle, in the annal for 1124, written before 1126: Ralph Basset and the king's thanes six men spilde of here ægon & of here stanes “deprived six men of their eyes and their testicles”, the sense “testicle” that the MED records down to the fifteenth century.^[2] The ordinary sense “stone” follows in the annal for 1137, where the barons' victims were put in a chest and dide scærpe stanes þer inne “[they] put sharp stones in it”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Old English range of the word continued: a single stone or rock, stone as a material, a building stone, a boundary stone, a gem and a stone in the bladder.^[2][8] In the Ormulum (c. 1175) a heathen heart iss harrd & starrc all allse stan “is hard and stiff as stone”, and stones are set deorewurrþe “precious” on the bier.^[2] The MED adds later senses: the stone of a fruit (a1325), a hailstone (a1382), a star (c1425, in Lydgate's Troy Book) and a unit of weight, usually of fourteen pounds, from the mid-fourteenth century in the Durham accounts.^[2]

In Chaucer the usual spelling is stoon (63 times) beside ston (24); Gower writes ston.^[9] The fifteenth-century Promptorium Parvulorum glosses Stone with Latin “petra, lapis”, a stone in a man's bladder with “calculus”, and Ston “in mannys pryui membre” with “testiculus”.^[10]

The word lives on as English stone and as Scots stane.^[1][11]

Timeline

• 1124–1126 – here stanes “their testicles” in the Peterborough Chronicle (annal for 1124).^[2]
• c. 1150–1160 – scærpe stanes “sharp stones” in the Peterborough Chronicle (annal for 1137).^[2]
• c. 1175 – stan, a gem and the material of a knife, in the Ormulum.^[2]
• before 1325 – the stone of a fruit (Þe ston do awy) in a cookery recipe.^[2]
• 1355–1356 – stone as a unit of weight in the Durham account rolls.^[2]
• c. 1375 – a caue of stoon in Chaucer's Monk's Tale.^[2]
• c. 1390 – þe seeknesse of þe ston, a stone in the bladder, in the Smaller Vernon Legendary.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. a stone or pebble; a boulder or rock; rocky ground.^[2][8]
2. stone as a material; a stone used in building; a gravestone or tomb.^[2]
3. a stone set up as a monument or a boundary mark; a millstone or whetstone.^[2]
4. a precious stone, a gem.^[2][8]
5. the stone of a fruit; a hailstone.^[2]
6. (medicine) a stone in the bladder or kidney, a calculus.^[2][10]
7. (anatomy) a testicle.^[2][10]
8. a unit of weight, usually of fourteen pounds.^[2]

Word family

• stonen
• stony
• graveston
• whetston
• mylneston
• brymston
• capston
• corner ston
• flynt ston

Descendants

• English stone^[1]
• Scots stane^[1]
• Yola sthoan^[1]

Related words

• gunneston
• pibleston
• slykeston
• stenen
• Stonhenge

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v 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), p. s.v. stōn n.
3. ^ a b c d Jordan, Richard (1934), Handbuch der mittelenglischen Grammatik, I. Teil: Lautlehre, 2nd ed. by H. Ch. Matthes, Heidelberg: Carl Winter (3rd printing 1968), p. § 44
4. ^ a b A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (1931–2002), ed. W. A. Craigie et al., in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language, dsl.ac.uk, p. s.v. stan n.
5. ^ Mayhew, A. L.; Skeat, Walter W. (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. stoon
6. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 472
7. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 369
8. ^ a b c Tolkien, J. R. R. (1922), A Middle English Vocabulary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. ston
9. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme, p. s.v. ston n.
10. ^ a b c Way, Albert, ed. (1843–1865), Promptorium Parvulorum sive Clericorum, Dictionarius Anglo-Latinus Princeps, 3 parts, London: Camden Society, p. 476
11. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com