Forms: 7–9 stilet, 8 stillet, 9 stillette, 8– stylet. [a. F. stylet, ad. It. stiletto: see STILETTO.]
1. Surg. A slender probe. Also, a wire ran through a catheter or canula in order to stiffen it or to clear it.
1697. Phil. Trans., XIX. 458. I thrust a Stilet or Probe into the Cavity of the Vertebres. Ibid. (1722), XXXII. 84. First, Pass the Catheter,… then draw out the Stillet.
1806. Med. Jrnl., XV. 226. I found the instrument [a catheter] advance suddenly for the space of half an inch, but on withdrawing the stillette, nothing but a few drops of blood followed.
1846. Brittan, trans. Malgaigne’s Man. Oper. Surg., 271. Ware accidentally observed that when a metallic stylet is placed in the canal, the overflow of tears almost immediately ceases…. His stylet is a metallic wire about an inch and a quarter long…. The patient wears it all his life.
1864. T. Holmes’ Syst. Surg., IV. 1047. In addition to these, the Surgeon should have a dozen elastic catheters, in graduated series, fitted with wire stilettes, and a few straight solid bougies.
1871. Meadows, Man. Midwifery (ed. 2), 349. The first step to be taken is to puncture the membranes. This may readily be done by means of a stilet, or a common hair-pin.
1894. Lancet, 3 Nov., 1033. If necessary, a stylet, passed through the puncture for stop, can be used for introduction. The fixation with two catheters, done in the first instance, is useful on emergency.
2. † a. Bot. = STYLE sb. 8.
1720. P. Blair, Bot. Ess., i. 14. The Pistillum or Pestil, the Stylus or Stillet, the Apices or Tops.
1723. Phil. Trans., XXXII. 444. This Stylet ordinarily splits into 3 Parts, just opposite to the Top of the Stamina.
b. Zool. = STYLE sb. 9, 10.
1834. McMurtrie, Cuvier’s Anim. Kingd., 456. In Stratiomys … the antennæ are much longer than the head, the first and last joint being greatly elongated; the latter is fusiform,… consisting of at least five distinct rings, without an abrupt stilet at the extremity.
1838. Penny Cycl., XII. 492/2. In the Dragonflies there are small flattened appendages … which are called stylets.
1872. A. S. Packard, Guide Study Insects (ed. 3), 58. The abdomen is now pointed at the extremity and divided into the rudiments of the two anal stylets, which form large, acute tubercles.
1889. Hardwicke’s Sci.-Gossip, XXV. 213/1. A crystalline stylet … found in the stomach of some snails.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 944. This veneno-salivary gland is situated in the head of the mosquito, communicating by means of a long duct with the base of the middle stylet or lingula.
† 3. = STYLE sb. 1, STYLUS 1. Obs.
1750. Freeman, Herculaneum, in Phil. Trans., XLVII. 139. A sort of standish, or inkhorn, in which were found many stylets or pens, with which they wrote in those days.
b. A kind of pencil for the use of the blind.
1819. trans. Guillié’s Ess. Blind (1894), 97. The stilet, or pencil should be held with the thumb, the fore-finger, and the middle-finger…. The blind, in general, have the fault of holding the stilet too close between their fingers.
1883. Daily News, 17 May, 2/3. Girls and lads … writing their exercises with stylets with great rapidity…. Others were taking notes with great rapidity by the familiar aid of the stylet and the brass perforated rule.
c. A pointed marking instrument; a graving tool.
1853. C. Brontë, Villette, xx. The strong hieroglyphics graven as with iron stylet on his brow. Ibid., xli. Her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a steel stylet.
1872. S. Mostyn, Perplexity, I. xiii. 260. Already I seem to trace the stylet of life in certain lines about my lineaments.
1874. J. Geikie, Gt. Ice Age, vi. 79. Stones used as chisels and stylets by the ice.
1902. Westm. Gaz., 23 Oct., 6/1. Sand was placed on the floor, and each time the pendulum passed over it a new track was marked by the stylet in regular deviation.
4. A stiletto, dagger.
1820. Scott, Abbot, iv. Whether it be a stilet, which we have borrowed from the treacherous Italian, or a dirk.
1842. Browning, In a Gondola, 108. While … Gian pinions me, Himself has past His stylet thro’ my back; I reel.
1866. Meredith, Vittoria, viii. One sharp scar … he owed to the knife of a friend, by name Sarpo, who had got things ready to betray him, and struck him … but, striking, like a novice, on the bone, the stilet stuck there.
5. Comb.
1878. Brady, Copepoda, I. 19. Artotrogidæ … Mandibles stilet-shaped. Ibid. (1880), III. 12. Stylet-shaped.
