Also 7 stillicid. [Anglicized form of STILLICIDIUM.]
1. A falling of water, etc., in drops; a succession of drops. Now rare.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 24. Wee see it also in the Stillicides of water, which if ther be water enough to follow, will Drawe themselues into a small thredd, because they will not discontinue.
a. 1651. N. Culverwel, Lt. Nat., etc. II. vi. (1654), 161. Sir Francis Bacon spies this in those fallings down of water, that thred and spin themselves into such slender stillicids.
1657. Tomlinson, Renou’s Disp., 192. To Irrigation we may refer the Stillicide or Laver of medicated waters.
1898. T. Hardy, Wessex Poems, 156. In the mated measured note Of … a lone cave’s stillicide.
2. Civil and Scots Law. The dropping of rain-water from the eaves of a house upon another’s land or roof; the right or the servitude relating to this.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Stillicide, the dropping of the Eaves of an house.
1681. Stair, Inst. Law Scot., XVII. vii. 342. The next positive City-servitude is, of Stillicides or Sinks: Stillicide is the easing-drop which falleth off any house [etc.].
1754. Erskine, Princ. Sc. Law (1809), 222. No proprietor can build, so as to throw the rain water falling from his own house immediately upon his neighbour’s ground, without a special servitude, which is called of stillicide.
