Obs. exc. arch. and dial. Also 5 Sc. stal, 6 staale, Sc. stail; 7–9 rare stall. [Proximate source uncertain; perh. a. OF. estaler (once in Godef., with erroneous explanation) = It. stallare; either adopted from, or the source of, the Teut. word which appears as Du., LG., HG. stallen (MHG. in 14th c.), Sw. stalla, Da. stalle, to make water (said of horses).
Attempts have been made to identify the Teut. word with G. (Du., etc.) stallen to place in a stall, be lodged in a stall, also to come to a stand (see STALL sb. and v.). For objections to these explanations see Grimm s.v. stallen.]
1. intr. To urinate, said esp. of horses or cattle.
14[?]. Lawis Gild, x. in Anc. Laws Scot. (Burgh Rec. Soc.), 68. Gif ony stal in the yet of the gilde … he sall gif iiijd. to the mendis.
c. 1450. Merlin, xxvii. 526. He turned be-side the wey to make his horse stale.
1530. Palsgr., 732/1. Tary a whyle, your hors wyll staale.
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, Wks. (Grosart), III. 206. Bringing in his great horse … into his Banquetting-house; to dung and stale amongst his guests.
1614. B. Jonson, Bart. Fair, I. iv. Why a pox o’ your boxe, once again: let your little wife stale in it, and she will.
c. 1630. in Law’s Memor. (1818), Introd. p. lv. He should pluck up a nettle by the root … and stale upon it three severall mornings.
1663. Killigrew, Parson’s Wedd., I. iii. I wonder he [the knight’s son] doth not go on all four too, and hold up his Leg when he stales.
1735. Burdon, Pocket-Farrier, 22. Sometimes a Horse cannot stall, and will be in great Pain.
1795. T. Maurice, Hindostan, I. ix. (1820), I. 285. The great astronomer Thoth, who, as the fiction goes, observing the baboon to stale twelve times in the day, at equal intervals, borrowed thence the idea, and contrived an instrument which produced the same effect.
1812. Skellett, in H. Stephens, Bk. Farm (1844), II. 477. She will be frequently dunging, stalling, and blaring.
1886. W. Somerset Word-bk., Stale, to void urine—of horses only.
1891. T. Hardy, Tess, lii. While the horses stood to stale and breathe themselves.
1903. Kipling, 5 Nations (1903), 150. Cattle-dung where fuel failed; Water where the mules had staled; And sackcloth for their raiment.
† 2. trans. To pass (blood) in the urine. Obs.
a. 1550[?]. Droichis Part of Play, 62, in Dunbar’s Poems (S.T.S.), 316. Scho tuke the gravall and staild Craig Gorth.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 132. Anatolius approued beane meale sifted and sod with Harts marrow to be giuen to a horse which stalleth blood.
1647. J. C[leveland], Char. Lond.-Diurn., 2. For it casts the water of the State, ever since it staled bloud.
