a. Now literary. Forms: 4 stalouart, -wart, (stawlouart), stalawrt, 4–5 stallwart, 5 stal(l)uart, stalwert, 4–6, 9 stalwart. [A 16th-c. Sc. form of STALWORTH a., brought into Eng. use by Scott.]
A. adj.
1. Of persons († and animals): Strongly and stoutly built, sturdy, robust.
c. 1450. Holland, Howlat, 697. The Stork, stallwart and styth.
c. 1470. Golagros & Gaw., 555. On stedis stalwart and strang.
1825. Brockett, N. C. Gloss., Stalwart, stout, strong, hale.
1837. Lockhart, Scott, IV. vi. 189. A tall and stalwart bagpiper.
1856. Miss Mulock, J. Halifax, i. 1. What would I not have given to have been so stalwart and so tall.
2. Of inanimate things: Firmly made or established, strong. Now rare.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, III. 732. A rycht stalwart castell. Ibid., XIII. 14. With wapnys stalwart of steill Thai dang on thame with all thar mycht.
c. 1470. Henry, Wallace, V. 1136. Tre wark thai brynt … Wallis brak doun that stalwart war off stanys.
1508. Dunbar, Tua Mariit Wemen, 384. He … maid a stalwart staff to strik him selfe doune.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., II. 80. Its old walls, however, are stalwart enough to outlast another set of frescos.
3. Of persons, their attributes, etc.: Resolute, unbending, determined. Chiefly modern.
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, I. (Katherine), 695. Bad hir be of stawlouart will.
1840. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Black Mousquetaire. The form whose stalwart pride But yester-morn was by his side.
1903. Morley, Gladstone, I. 69. The duke made his stalwart declaration in the House of Lords against all parliamentary reform.
1905. E. Clodd, Animism, § 17. 99. The stalwart opponents of superstition refused his request.
† b. Of a fight: Stoutly contested, severe. Obs.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, I. 68. The Machabeys, That … Faucht into mony stallwart stour, For to delyvir thair countre.
c. 1420. Wyntoun, Cron., VIII. xxxiii. 5836. He fande þar hard [v.r. stalwart] barganynge.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, X. v. 164. The tyme of batale reddy is at hand, Quhar strenth beis schawyn in stalwart stowr to stand.
4. Valiant in fight, brave, courageous.
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, xxix. (Placidas), 250. For-þi mon þu, as stalawrt knycht, to resist hym mak þe bown.
c. 1470. Golagros & Gaw., 353. Wondir staluart and strang, to striue in ane stour.
a. 1550[?]. Freiris Berwik, 507, in Dunbar’s Poems, II. 302. Sumthing effrayit, thocht stalwart was his hart.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., I. xxviii. Whose stalwart arm might brook to wield A blade like this in battle-field.
1859. Tennyson, Vivien, 332. But afterwards He made a stalwart knight.
† 5. Of a storm, weather: Violent, tempestuous.
1528. Lyndesay, Dreme, 80. With stalwart stormes hir sweitnes wes suprisit.
1827. W. Tennant, Papistry Storm’d, vi. 187. Siccan stalwart weather.
6. Comb.
1837. B. D. Walsh, Aristoph., Knts., IV. i. 1178. I. 244. The stalwart-fathered goddess gives this meat.
1871. Palgrave, Lyr. Poems, 51. Red-faced and stalwart-fashioned Point-blank they came on their foes.
B. sb.
1. A strong and valiant man.
Now only as nonce-use, after 2.
c. 1470. Golagros & Gaw., 642. Thair wes na staluart vnstonait, so sterne wes the stound. Ibid., 767. Thair with the stalwartis in stour can stotin and stynt.
1891. A. H. Krane, in Academy, 3 Jan., 7/2. Emin’s ‘stalwarts’ … proving to be for the most part brutal ruffians and abject cravens in the presence of danger.
2. A sturdy uncompromising partisan; esp. as a political designation.
In U.S. politics 1877 and subsequently, an extremist of the Republican party.
1881. Nation (N. Y.), XXXII. 415/2. The epithet ‘Stalwart’ as applied to a class of politicians was first used by Mr. Blaine in 1877 to designate those Republicans who were unwilling to give up hostility and distrust of the South as a political motive.
1890. Times, 11 July, 9/3. The ‘stalwarts’ of the Radical party, supported the resolution.
attrib. 1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., II. xlvi. II. 203. The ‘Stalwart’ and ‘Half-breed’ sections of the Republican party.
1907. National Church, 15 Oct., 262/1. The ‘stalwart’ section of militant Dissent.
b. One who is disposed to take an uncompromising position with regard to political, religious and social questions in general; a ‘doctrinaire.’ rare.
1899. Patten, Developm. Engl. Thought, i. 27. I shall call them stalwarts from their love of doctrines, dogmas, and creeds, and from their inclination to subordinate policy to principle. Ibid., 28. Stalwarts are always impressed by ideals that are clear and simple, by principles that are bold and definite, by creeds that are rigid and exact, and by platforms that are plain and unmistakable.
