Forms: 5 s[t]ot, 5–6 stoote, 5–9 stote, 9 stoot, 7– stoat. [Of obscure origin: there appears to be no ground for assuming connection with STOT.] The European ermine, Putorius ermineus or Mustela erminea, esp. when in its brown summer coat.
c. 1460. Porkington MS. 10 lf. 189. Þis byne þe bestes of þe stynkyng fute. The folmard … þe ottur þe stote and þe polcatte.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, f iv b. The Squyrell, the Whitrat, the S[t]ot, and the Pulcatte.
1552. Huloet, Stoote, beast or vermyne whyche kylleth rabettes, ferunculus.
1570. Levins, Manip., 178/7. A stote, vermine, furunculus.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 219. It is said … that if the head of a wolfe be hanged up in a doue-cote, neither cat, Ferret, weasil, Stoate, or other noysome beast dare to enter therein.
1619. Middleton, Tri. Love & Antiq., D 1. The names of those Beasts, bearing Furr,… Ermine, Foyne, Sables…. Minck, Stote, Miniuer, [etc.].
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1757), 417. When they are penned up they are more secure from the stote.
1768. Pennant, Brit. Zool., I. 84. The weesel being usually mistaken for a small stoat.
1823. E. Moor, Suffolk Words, Stoot, a species of pole-cat or weazle.
1872. Tennyson, Gareth & Lynette, 871. Lion and stoat have isled together, knave, In time of flood.
1894. Lydekker, Roy. Nat. Hist., II. 64. The stoat or, as it is generally called when in winter dress, the ermine (Mustela erminea), is closely allied to the weasel.
1897. ‘Ouida,’ Massarenes, xxxix. You are as keen after gold as a stoat after poultry.
fig. 1854. Cdl. Wiseman, Fabiola, II. vi. 173. You came here as a famous plot-hunter, a sort of stoat, to pull conspirators out of their nests.
b. Comb., as stoat-hunting; stoat-weasel, a stoat.
1836. Mrs. Sherwood, Henry Milner, III. iii. To remember it was Sunday, and no day for stoat hunting.
1882. J. Hardy, in Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, IX. ii. 427. Stoat-weasels … still hold their ground.
