Word.ws English Dictionary

stable-stand

stable-stand noun: the position of a person found standing in the forest with a crossbow or longbow bent, ready to shoot at a deer, or close by a tree with greyhounds in a leash ready to slip; one of the four presumptions that a person intended to steal the king's deer.

Noun

stable-stand (uncountable)

  1. (UK, obsolete) The position of a person found standing in the forest with a crossbow or longbow bent, ready to shoot at a deer, or close by a tree with greyhounds in a leash ready to slip; one of the four presumptions that a person intended to steal the king's deer.
    • I'll keep my stable-stand where I lodge my wife, I'll go in couples with her.1623, Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale
    • The four indications of offence against Vert and Venison, in like manner arrange themselves in rhyme - Dog draw, stable stand, Backberinde, and bloody hand;-and this formed the precept of the Forester, and instructed him to seize the trespasser who was taken with the mayneer whilst roaming in the...1818 December, “The Gothic Laws of Spain”, in Edinburgh Review, volume 31, number 61, page 96

Examples of stable-stand in a sentence

  • The Law further provides that the Forester may take a man if he be found either at “Dog-draw," "Stable-stand," "Back-bear,” or “Bloody-hand."1868, Thomas Newbigging, History of the Forest of Rossendale, page 63:
  • The sportsmen would be standing at their trysts or stable-stand in some alley or glade of the wood, and the hounds be put into the covert or park "to tease them forth."2013, Edward of Norwich, William A. Baillie-Grohman, F. N. Baillie-Grohman, The Master of Game, page 261:

Questions about stable-stand

What does stable-stand mean?
Stable-stand means the position of a person found standing in the forest with a crossbow or longbow bent, ready to shoot at a deer, or close by a tree with greyhounds in a leash ready to slip; one of the four presumptions that a person intended to steal the king's deer.
How do you use stable-stand in a sentence?
The Law further provides that the Forester may take a man if he be found either at “Dog-draw," "Stable-stand," "Back-bear,” or “Bloody-hand."
What part of speech is stable-stand?
Stable-stand is a noun.

Words near stable-stand in the dictionary

  1. stable matching problems
  2. stable vice
  3. stable vices
  4. stable-boy
  5. stable-boys
  6. stable-stand
  7. stableboy
  8. stableboys
  9. stablecoin
  10. stablecoins
  11. stabled

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stable-stand (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “stable-stand.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stable-stand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.