verb. (old).—To crowd, to make hot in a sultry atmosphere. STIVED UP = stifled.
1834. SEBA SMITH (‘Major Downing’), Jack Downing’s Letters, i. 34. “Oh, marcy on us,” said she [a fat lady, who was looking for a house], “this’ll never do for my family at all. There’s no convenience about it; only one little STIVED UP closet…. [And the bed-rooms] she would as soon sleep in a pig’s pen and done with it, as to go into sich little mean STIVED UP places as them.”
1870. JUDD, Margaret, ii. 8. ‘Things are a good deal STIVED UP,’ answered the Deacon.
1876. G. ELIOT, Daniel Deronda, liv. I shall go out in a boat … instead of STIVING in a damnable hotel.
Verb. (American).—To run; to move off [BARTLETT: ‘a low word used in the Northern States’].
See STEW.
