Also stye. [OE. stiʓian, f. stiʓ, stí STY sb. Cf. ON. stía.]
1. trans. To place or confine (swine) in a sty. Also with up.
a. 1100. Gerefa, in Anglia, IX. 262. Swyn stiʓian.
1573–80. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 40. At Mihelmas safely go stie vp thy Bore.
1614. Markham, Cheap Husb., V. xvi. 96. First, you shall stie vp those Swine which you intend to feede.
1655. Moufet & Bennet, Health’s Improv., viii. 67. As for the common way of brawning Bores, by stying them up in so close a room that they cannot turn themselves round about.
1674. Flatman, Belly God, 76. The Hampshire Hog with Pease and Whey that’s fed Sti’d up, is neither good alive nor dead.
1725. Bradley’s Family Dict., s.v. Swine, In Champain Countries they must sty up thin Hogs.
1886. Stevenson, Kidnapped, xvi. The inn … was the most beggarly vile place that ever pigs were styed in.
1899. J. Lumsden, Edinburgh Poems & Songs, 108. The times wad be amiss When I styed here my soo.
b. transf. To confine as in a sty; to place in narrow and uncomfortable quarters; to pen up.
1610. Shaks., Temp., I. ii. 342. And here you sty me In this hard Rocke, whiles you doe keepe from me The rest o’ th’ Island.
1622. Massinger & Dekker, Virg. Mart., V. i. Bandogs (kept three dayes hungry) worried 1000. British Rascals, styed vp, fat Of purpose.
1646. Trapp, Comm. John xxi. 2, 144. God dwels in the Assembly of Saints: shall we, like Stoicks stie up our selves, and not daily runne into their company?
2. intr. To share a sty with; to dwell as in a sty.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1768), VIII. 61. What woman … did she know what miry wallowers the generality of men of our class are in themselves, and constantly trough and sty with, but would [etc.].
1829. Fonblanque, Eng. under 7 Administr. (1837), I. 283. See in your public estate too the havoc the pigs make,… who … devour your cabbages,… stye in your house, and grunt in your Parliament.
1894. H. Nisbet, Bush Girl’s Rom., 145. A nice piggery for successful squatters to sty in, I must say.
Hence Styed ppl. a., set in a sty.
1829. E. Elliott, Village Patriarch, III. ix. Yet, unlike thee Is minion’d Erin’s sty’d and root-fed clown.
