Now rare. [WALKING vbl. sb.1] A staff or long stick that one carries in the hand for support or aid in walking. Also fig.
1546. J. Heywood, Prov., I. x. (1867), 21. Now I well understand The walkyng staffe hath caught warmth in your hand.
1593. Shaks., Rich. II., III. iii. 151. Ile giue … My Scepter, for a Palmers walking Staffe.
1694. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), III. 365. A person was taken in St. James Park with 2 pistolls laden in his pocket, his walking staffe being a gunn.
1726. Swift, Gulliver, III. The farmer … took a piece of a small straw, about the size of a walking-staff.
1784. Blake, Poet. Sk., Song Old Sheph. Virtue is our walking-staff.
1846. Keightley, Notes Virg., Flora, 383. It [Ferula communis] is common in Apulia, where the shepherds make walking-staffs of it.
1876. Rock, Textile Fabrics, 9. Returning, they brought with them a number of eggs [of silkworms] hidden in their walking-staves.
