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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1974 (SND Vol. IX). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

STOOK, n.¹, v. Also stou(c)k, stuck, stowk, stuke, stuik. [stuk]

I. n. 1. A shock of cut sheaves of grain, usu. ten or twelve, set up to dry in a harvest-field (Sc. 1755 S. Johnson Dict. s.v. Stuckle, 1782 J. Sinclair Ob. Sc. Dial. 183, 1808 Jam.).  Also dim. stookie. Gen.Sc. Orig. Sc. and n. Eng. but now current in other parts of Eng.; also of straw, etc., sim. made up in bundles. Combs. corn-stook, oat-stook, stook-side, etc.Wgt. 1702 G. Fraser Lowland Lore (1880) 26:
Whyle the stucks are upon the ground.Fif. 1704 County Folk-Lore (1914) 102:
The devil took her to a stook side, and caused her renounce her baptism.Bte. 1720 Rothesay T. C. Records (1935) II. 645:
6 stoucks of thatch to the schooll.Sc. 1729 Ramsay Poems (S.T.S.) III. 109:
They'll start at Winle Straes, yet never crook, When Interest bids, to lowp out o'er a Stowk.Sc. 1768 Weekly Mag. (6 Oct.) 31:
The bulk of the corns were in stouk.Ayr. 1785 Burns 3rd Ep. to J. Lapraik ix.:
Stooks are cowpet wi' the blast.em.Sc. 1794 W. Marshall Agric. Cent. Highl. 40:
These crops are harvested, either in sheaves and stooks of twelve, two of them being used as hoods.Rxb. 1798 R. Douglas Agric. Rxb. 88:
Stooks or shocks, each consisting of 12 sheaves: wheat has sometimes 14 sheaves.Sc. 1828 Wilson Noctes Amb. (1855) II. 154:
Doun come the hay-rucks, or the corn-stooks [in floods].Ags. 1853 W. Blair Aberbrothock 23:
She met wi'm first on a hairst rig, fan they baingied 'm amo' the stooks.Ayr. 1887 J. Service Dr. Duguid 84:
The winning win' of a grand hairst time was steering amang the stooks.e.Lth. 1908 J. Lumsden Th' Loudons 162:
Acres o' corn afore it's in stook!Fif. 1909 Colville 129:
The midday meal of baps and beer by a stook-side.Sh. 1916 J. Burgess Rasmie's Smaa Murr (Siptember 2):
Wi da stooks on da rigs, da laand shaas licghtsome.Rxb. 1918 Kelso Chron. (13 Sept.) 2:
The man who binds the sheav es and puts them in stooks.Abd. 1936 D. Bruce Cried on Sunday 8:
Gin ye wint a gweed shef, aye ging till a gweed stook.Sc. 1953 Scots Mag. (March) 434:
Grouse come to the oat-stooks in great numbers.m.Lth. 1960s:
Ye wee monkey, come fae ahint that stookie! m.Sc. 1986 Colin Mackay The Song of the Forest 165:
The last red evening of the reaping came down. The whole expanse of their glen was in stook, all the fields were tented with fourfold sheaves. Cai. 1992 James Miller A Fine White Stoor 13:
Isa said it had taken seven years of hard trauchle to bring in the acres and it seemed it had been too much for the man - not long after that he had died, falling in the stooks in the throes of a heart attack. m.Sc. 1996 John Murray Aspen 9:
At Berwick
the stookies is aw upliftit
an stibble fires burn rounaboot Edb. 2004:
When Ah went tae Musselburgh tae see ma Granma Ah aye saw stooks in the fields. There's nae fields noo; they hae aw bin built ower.

Adj. stookie, -y, formed by, containing or characterised by stooks of corn. Comb. stookie Sabbath (Knr. 1891 H. Haliburton. Ochil Idylls 28), -Sunday, the Sunday when harvest in any district is at its height and all the corn has been cut and stands in stooks in the field (Bnff. 1866 Gregor D. Bnff. 183; Ork., n. and em.Sc., Wgt. 1971), “from this date, and until winter is past, there is only one diet of Divine service in the churches of rural districts” (Sc. 1880 Jam.).Fif. 1867 St Andrews Gazette (28 Sept.):
Harvest operations are now quite general in this part of the country, and Sunday was undoubtedly the “stooky Sunday” of the year.Rnf. 1870 J. Nicholson Idylls 91:
When startled paitricks whirrin rise Frae 'mang the stooky raws.Abd. 1871 R. Matheson Poems 61:
“Stooky Sunday”: that Sunday on which the greatest number of stooks or shocks is to be seen any Sunday during harvest.Lnk. 1897 Chambers's Jnl. (17 April) 242:
It was customary for the country people on “Stookie” Sunday to climb Tinto to learn how far advanced were harvesting operations.em.Sc. 1909 J. Black Melodies 68:
Ower countrysides, far, far apairt, Whaur stooky fields were rife.Fif. 1924 A. M. Houston Auchterderran 138:
Next Sunday was stooky Sunday. The crops were all cut and standing in the stooks.Abd. 1964 Huntly Express (11 Sept.) 4:
It would be difficult to say when “Stookie Sunday” arrived in modern times when the combine has nigh driven stooking out of fashion.

2. Combs. and phrs.: ¶(1) stook an' sta, one's home and possessions, all one's belongings; ¶(2) stook and stour, wholly, entirely, altogether. The above expressions are alliterative variants of sim. phrs. under Stick, n.², (3), Stock, n.¹, 17.; (3) stook o' dirt, a filthy, unwashed person (Abd., Kcd. 1971); (4) stook o' duds, -rags, one dressed in rags, a tatterdemalion (Abd. 1971, -rags); (5) stook-ways, in the way stooks are set up.(1) Ags. 1873 D. M. Ogilvy Poems 213:
She was rouppit oot o' stook an' sta'.(2) Sc. 1830 Scott Demonology (1885) ix.:
We put it in into the fire, To burn them up stook and stour.(4) Dmf. 1831 Carlyle Sartor Res. iii. x.:
In Scotland, again, I find them entitled Hallanshakers, or the Stook of Duds Sect: any individual communicant is named Stook of Duds (that is, Shock of Rags), in allusion, to their professional Costume.Abd. 1917 Buchan Observer (27 Nov.):
Does any patriotic son or daughter of Peterhead desire that the crier of the town be a mere stook o' duds?(5) Sc. 1743 R. Maxwell Select Trans. 328:
The Lint is tied and set up Stock-ways.

II. v. 1. To set up (sheaves of corn or the like) in stooks, to make shocks (Sc. 1808 Jam.). Gen.Sc.; to set up or stack in gen., to pile up in heaps. Deriv. Stooker, the harvest-hand who sets up the cut sheaves (wm.Sc. 1825 Jam.). Gen.Sc.Sc. 1724 Treatise on Fallowing 70:
In a fair dry Day, raise it [flax] up, and stuke it in Huts without binding.Sc. 1758 Scots Mag. (April) 210:
Stealing corn-sheaves when stouked in the fields.Ayr. 1787 Burns To the Guidwife i.:
Still shearing and clearing The tither stooked raw.Sc. 1822 J. Wilson Lights & Shadows 214:
I was a stooker and a bandster on the corn-rigs.ne.Sc. 1881 W. Gregor Folk-Lore 181:
A binder and a “stooker” were appointed to each eight reapers.Gsw. 1884 H. Johnston Martha Spreull 64:
Hauf-a-dizzen wabs o salvage flannel that were stooket on the flair behind her.Sc. 1887 Stevenson Underwoods 121:
To daunder through the stookit corn.Per. 1893 R. M. Fergusson My Village 151:
A few solitary stookers pick up the sheaves at fixed intervals.Kcb. 1893 Crockett Raiders xlvi.:
Wha was't that cut an' stookit the feck o' the Maxwell's corn?Ags. 1915 V. Jacob Songs Ags. 48:
The sound o' reapin' Comes up frae the stookit corn.Kcd. 1933 Scots Mag. (Feb.) 333:
Cutting, binding and stooking as he reapered the fields.Abd. 1956 J. Murray Rural Rhymes 15:
The binders oot, the tractors roar . . . The stookers follow, fleet o' limb.wm.Sc. 1980 Anna Blair The Rowan on the Ridge 7:
"The bad years didnae tak' the stir oot of your spirtle or stop me stookin' when there was somethin' to stook," Sth. 1996 Eddie Davies in Timothy Neat The Summer Walkers: Travelling People and Pearl-Fishers in the Highlands of Scotland 41:
We worked the farms - harvest, tatties, neeps, hedging, ditching - Essie did it all with me; she could trim a blackthorn hedge just like a man. Stooking we would do - a pound an acre's what we got. You'd still hear the corncrakes then!

2. Of corn: to go into stooks, to bulk in the stook (Bnff. 1866 Gregor D. Bnff. 183; Sh., Bnff., Ags. 1971).Arg. 1800 Edb. Weekly Jnl. (1 Oct.) 318:
Their barley is very fine in quality, and stuiks also well.Lth., Cld. 1880 Jam.:
The corn's no stookin weel the year.Fif. 1935 St Andrews Citizen (21 Sept.) 8:
Good steady progress was made with the harvest, and the fields stooked well.