Word.ws English Dictionary

stir

UK/stɜː//stɝ/

stir verb: to disturb the relative position of the particles (of a liquid or similar) by passing an object through it.

Verb

stir (third-person singular simple present stirs, present participle stirring, simple past and past participle stirred)

  1. (transitive) To disturb the relative position of the particles (of a liquid or similar) by passing an object through it.
    • She stirred the pudding with a spoon.
    • He stirred his coffee so the sugar wouldn't stay at the bottom.
    Synonyms:
    agitate
  2. (transitive) To disturb the content of (a container) by passing an object through it.
    • Would you please stir this pot so that the chocolate doesn't burn?
  3. (transitive) To emotionally affect; to touch, to move.
    • And what delights can equal those
      ⁠That stir the spirit’s inner deeps,
      ⁠When one that loves but knows not, reaps
      A truth from one that loves and knows?1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XLI”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 64
  4. (transitive) To incite to action.
    • An Ate, stirring him to bloud and strife […]c. 1595, William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King John, act I, scene 2
    • The Soldiers love her Brother’s Memory; / And for her sake some Mutiny will stir.c. 1670, John Dryden, Tyrannick Love, or the Royal Martyr, III.1
  5. (transitive) To bring into debate; to agitate.
    • Preserue the rights of thy place, but stirre not questions of Iurisdiction : and rather assume thy right in silence, and de facto, then voice it with claimes, and challenges.1613, Francis Bacon, chapter 8, in The Essaies, London
  6. (obsolete, transitive) To disturb, to disrupt.
    • They ſay he is the King of Perſea.
      But if he dare attempt to ſtir your ſiege,
      Twere requiſite he ſhould be ten times more,
      For all fleſh quakes at your magnificence.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
  7. (dated, transitive) To change the place of in any manner; to move.
    • […] notwithstanding the swelling of my Foot, so that I had never yet in five days been able to stir it, but as it was lifted.1677, Sir William Temple, “An Essay upon the Cure of Gout by Moxa”, in Miscellanea. The First Part, London, published 1705, page 209
    • 'But the bolts can't be stirred, dear,' protested Myra. 'I've tried myself until my poor thumbs are nearly dislocated. […]'1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries
  8. (intransitive) To begin to move, especially gently, from a still or unmoving position.
    • And especially if they happen to have any superior character or possessions in this world, they fancy they have a right to talk freely upon everything that stirs or appears[…]1741, Isaac Watts, The Improvement of the Mind
    • I had not strength to stir or strive, / But felt that I was still alive— […]1816, Byron, The Prisoner of Chillon
  9. (intransitive) Of a feeling or emotion: to rise, begin to be felt.
    • That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst.1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
    • Though as I said it, glibly, reassuringly, I knew that I lied, and a little snake of guilt stirred and began to uncoil slightly, guilt and its constant companion deceit.1993, Susan Hill, Mrs de Winter, published 1999, page 54
  10. (intransitive) To be in motion; to be active or bustling; to exert or busy oneself.
    • All are not fit with them to stir and toil.1818, Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto III, stanza LXIX
    • Meanwhile, the friends of the unfortunate exile, far from resenting his unjust suspicions, were stirring anxiously in his behalf.1850, Charles Merivale, A History of the Romans under the Empire, volume 1
  11. (intransitive) To rise from sleep or unconsciousness.
    • “Mid-Lent, and the Enemy grins,” remarked Selwyn as he started for church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now convalescent from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the grippe, and now moaned...1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IV, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

Noun (1)

stir (countable and uncountable, plural stirs)

  1. The act or result of stirring (moving around the particles of a liquid etc.)
    • Can you give the soup a little stir?
  2. agitation; tumult; bustle; noise or various movements.
    • Why all these words, this clamour, and this stir?1668, John Denham, Of Prudence (poem).
    • Consider, after so much stir about genus and species, how few words we have yet settled definitions of.1693, [John Locke], “§107”, in Some Thoughts Concerning Education, London: […] A[wnsham] and J[ohn] Churchill, […], →OCLC
  3. Public disturbance or commotion; tumultuous disorder; seditious uproar.
    • Being advertised of some stirs raised by his unnatural sons in England.1612, Sir John Davies, Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued
  4. Agitation of thoughts; conflicting passions.

Noun (2)

stir (countable and uncountable, plural stirs)

  1. (slang) Jail; prison.
    • He's going to be spending maybe ten years in stir.
    • The Bat—they called him the Bat.[…]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01

Noun (3) capitalized: STIR

STIR (plural STIRs)

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of short-term interest rate, often referring to a short-term interest rate future or option.

stir meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Malayalam

stir in Tamil

கிளறவும், கிளறிவிடுங்கள், கிளறி விடுங்கள்

stir in Marathi

ढवळून घ्या

stir in Urdu

ہلچل مچائیں, ہلچل مچا دیں

stir in Malayalam

ഇളക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
stir in Gujarati
જગાડવો
stir in Arabic
تَحَرَّكَ taḥarraka
stir in Thai
คน kon
stir in Vietnamese
quấy, khuấy, quậy, trộn

Examples of stir in a sentence

  • My minde is troubled, like a Fountaine stir'd, / And I my selfe see not the bottome of it.1602, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, act III, scene 3:
  • When the long, hot journey drew to its end and the train slowed down for the last time, there was a stir in Jessamy’s carriage.1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 7:
  • Sing Sing was a tough joint in those days, one of the five worst stirs in the United States.1928, Jack Callahan, Man's Grim Justice: My Life Outside the Law, page 42:

All 40 example sentences with stir

Synonyms of stir

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of stir

Forms of stir

Verb
third-person singular presentstirs
present participlestirring
past participlestirred
paststirred
second-person singular present (archaic)stirrest
second-person singular past (archaic)stirredst
third-person singular present (archaic)stirreth
Noun
pluralstirs
pluralSTIRs

Past tense of stir: stirred

Plural of stir: stirs

Origin of stir

From Middle English stiren, sturien, steren, from Old English styrian (“to be in motion, move, agitate, stir, disturb, trouble”), from Proto-Germanic *sturiz (“turmoil, noise, confusion”), related to Proto-West Germanic *staurijan (“to destroy, disturb”). Cognate with Old Norse styrr (“turmoil, noise, confusion”), German stören (“to disturb”), Dutch storen (“to disturb”).

From Romani stariben (“prison”), nominalisation of (a)star (“seize”), causative of ast (“remain”), probably from Sanskrit आतिष्ठति (ātiṣṭhati, “stand or remain by”), from तिष्ठति (tiṣṭhati, “stand”).

Words formed from stir

Phrases with stir

Words that rhyme with stir

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about stir

What does stir mean?
Stir means to disturb the relative position of the particles (of a liquid or similar) by passing an object through it.
What is stir in Tamil?
Stir in Tamil is கிளறவும், கிளறிவிடுங்கள், கிளறி விடுங்கள். See Stir meaning in Tamil.
How do you use stir in a sentence?
My minde is troubled, like a Fountaine stir'd, / And I my selfe see not the bottome of it.
What part of speech is stir?
Stir can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce stir?
Stir is pronounced /stɜː/ (UK).
What is the past tense of stir?
The past tense of stir is stirred.

Words near stir in the dictionary

  1. stipuliferous
  2. stipuliform
  3. stipulode
  4. stipulodes
  5. stipulæ
  6. stir
  7. stir a finger
  8. stir bar
  9. stir bars
  10. stir crazy
  11. stir fries

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stir (page history and authors); STIR (page history and authors); stir (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stir (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stir (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stir (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); stir (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-stir.ogg.

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