Word.ws English Dictionary

stool

/stuːl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern Ireland/stʉl/

stool noun: a seat for one person without a back or armrests. Also the alternative form of stole.

stool: a seat for one person without a back or armrests
Image: Rami Tareef, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

stool (countable and uncountable, plural stools)

  1. A seat for one person without a back or armrests.
  2. A footstool.
  3. (Scotland, dialectal) A seat with a back; a chair.
  4. (Scotland, dialectal, figuratively, literally) A throne.
  5. (Africa, West) A royal seat; a chief's throne.
  6. A plant that has been cut down until its main stem is close to the ground, resembling a stool, to promote new growth.
    • The ground in almost every part of it is covered with stools or stems of Oak, at not more than three feet stool from stool, and these not having been thinned since last cutting, are completely overburdened, and are evidently killing each other and dying for want of nourishment […]1827, Robert Monteath, Miscellaneous Reports on Woods and Plantations, Shewing a Method to Plant, Rear, and Recover all Woods, Plantations and Timber Trees on every Soil and Situation in Britain and...
    • With stool bedding, the plants are pruned back to the ground in the dormant season, and the shoots that form in the spring have juvenile characteristics and are called "juvenile reversion shoots." Stool bedding or stool bed layering is a common practice for the production of rootstocks of apple....2011, Caula A. Beyl, Robert N. Trigiano, editors, Plant Propagation Concepts and Laboratory Exercises, 2nd edition, Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, →ISBN, pages 88 and 154
  7. (dated) A close-stool; a seat used for urination and defecation: a chamber pot, commode, outhouse seat, or toilet.
  8. (broadly) Feces; excrement.
    • I provided the doctor with stool samples.
    • The diagnostic criteria for infant dyschezia are at least 10 minutes of straining and crying before successful passage of soft stools in an otherwise healthy infant less than six months of age.
      In a child with infant dyschezia, physical examination and stool examination are normal.2002, Paul Hyman, “Infant Dyschezia: Looking out for Number Two”, in International Foundation for Gastrointestinal Disorders, number 823
    1. (broadly) A production of feces or excrement; an act of defecation, stooling.
      • Normal stooling is widely variant. Some infants only have one stool per day, especially those on formula feeding. Others may stool with each feeding. Such frequent stooling is common in breast-fed infants during the first month of life.2004, Gary A. Emmett, Field Guide to the Normal Newborn, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, →ISBN, page 132
  9. A small channel on the side of a vessel, for the deadeyes of the backstays.
    • the fore backstay deadeyes and stool had to be lowered 2 feet1972, The Mariner's Mirror
  10. (US, dialectal) Material, such as oyster shells, spread on the sea bottom for oyster spat to adhere to.
  11. (archaic) A decoy; a portable piece of wood to which a pigeon is fastened to lure wild birds.
    Synonyms:
    stool pigeon
  12. (slang) An informer to the police.
    Synonyms:
    stool pigeon

Verb (1)

stool (third-person singular simple present stools, present participle stooling, simple past and past participle stooled)

  1. To produce stool: to defecate.
    • Infrequent stooling in the first month of life is almost always due to insufficient intake of milk. A baby who is voiding but not stooling or gaining weight may not be receiving enough high fat hindmilk. Stooling frequency will correct itself with additional feeds or making sure the infant receives...1999, Judith Lauwers with Debbie Shinskie, Counseling the Nursing Mother: A Lactation Consultant's Guide, 3rd edition, Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, →ISBN, page 204
    • Normal stooling is widely variant. Some infants only have one stool per day, especially those on formula feeding. Others may stool with each feeding. Such frequent stooling is common in breast-fed infants during the first month of life.2004, Gary A. Emmett, Field Guide to the Normal Newborn, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, →ISBN, page 132
  2. To cut down (a plant) until its main stem is close to the ground, resembling a stool, to promote new growth.
    • Cutting back to the same position annually is usually referred to as pollarding; cutting nearly to the ground is usually called stooling. Both are good methods of controlling height and maintaining vigor on plants that would normally grow to a large size. […] Those [plants] that generate many small...2011, Edward F. Gilman, An Illustrated Guide to Pruning, 3rd edition, Clifton Park, N.Y.: Delmar, Cengage Learning, →ISBN, page 411
    • The healthier of your two hollies is multi-stemmed, indicating that it was once stooled (cut down to a point just above the ground). It has since grown back vigorously to become a thick, wide tree which enabled it even more to overshadow the one that you say was quite severely pruned last year.2015 October 23, Helen Yemm, “How to rescue a dying holly tree [print version: Halt weed invasion, a holly tree's last stand, 24 October 2015, page 7]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review), London...

Verb (2)

stool (third-person singular simple present stools, present participle stooling, simple past and past participle stooled)

  1. To ramify; to tiller, as grain; to shoot out suckers.
    • I worked very hard in the copse of young ash, with my billhook and a shearing-knife; cutting out the saplings where they stooled too close together, making spars to keep for thatching, wall-crooks to drive into the cob, stiles for close sheep hurdles, and handles for rakes, and hoes, and two-bills...1869, Richard D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone, chapter 38
    • The plants stooled out well, and yielded a heavy cutting of rather tough cane. In its young state it should make good silage.1904, Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock, Annual Report, →OCLC, page 80

Also used as

stool is also the alternative form of stole.

stool meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Telugu

stool in Hindi

a seat
तिपाई tipāī, पीढ़ा pīṛhā, चौकी caukī

stool in Marathi

a seat
स्टूल sṭūl

stool in Urdu

a seat
تِپائی tipāī, اِسْٹُول isṭūl

stool in Telugu

a seat
పీట pīṭa, స్టూలు sṭūlu
More languagesFewer languages
stool in Malayalam
മലം malaṁ
stool in Assamese
মুঢ়া murha, টুল tul
stool in Tagalog
taburete
stool in Arabic
مِقْعَد miqʕad, مَقْعَدَة maqʕada, بِرَاز birāz
stool in Thai
อุจจาระ ùt-jaa-rá
stool in Vietnamese
ghế đẩu

Examples of stool in a sentence

  • The diameter of a stool is thus directly related to its age. […] stool 1.2012, Michael Allaby, editor, A Dictionary of Plant Sciences, 3rd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, pages 125 and 486:
  • Two days prior to the consultation, an abdominal radiograph was done because the patient hadn't stooled in a week.2014, David R. Fleisher, Management of Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders in Children: Biopsychosocial Concepts for Clinical Practice...
  • Infrequent stooling in the first month of life is almost always due to insufficient intake of milk.1999, Judith Lauwers with Debbie Shinskie, Counseling the Nursing Mother: A Lactation Consultant's Guide, 3rd edition, Sudbury, Mass....
  • No signs of obstruction and no abnormal accumulations of stool were found.2014, David R. Fleisher, Management of Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders in Children: Biopsychosocial Concepts for Clinical Practice...

All 40 example sentences with stool

Synonyms of stool

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of stool

Forms of stool

Noun
pluralstools
alternative formstoole
Verb
third-person singular presentstools
present participlestooling
past participlestooled
paststooled

Plural of stool: stools

Origin of stool

From Middle English stool, from Old English stōl (“chair, seat”), from Proto-West Germanic *stōl, from Proto-Germanic *stōlaz (“chair”), from Proto-Indo-European *stoh₂los (“frame, rack, stand”), from *steh₂- (“to stand”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian stuul, stölj, Stööl (“chear”), Saterland Frisian Stoul (“chear”), West Frisian stoel (“chair, seat”), Dutch stoel (“chair”), German Stuhl (“chair”), Low German Stohl (“chair”), Luxembourgish Stull (“chair”), Vilamovian śtül (“chair”), Yiddish שתוהל (shsuhl), שטול (shtul, “chair”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish stol (“chair”), Faroese stólur (“chair”), Icelandic stóll (“chair”), Crimean Gothic stul (“seat”), Gothic 𐍃𐍄𐍉𐌻𐍃 (stōls, “chair; throne”), Russian стул (stul, “chair”), Estonian tool (“chair”), Finnish tuoli (“chair”); also Breton and Cornish sevel (“to erect, rise; to build; to lift; to compose; to earn”), Irish sáil, sál (“heel”), Scottish Gaelic sàil (“heel”), Welsh sefyll (“to stand; to stop; to sit”), Latin sistō (“to set; to stop; to stand; to stabilise”), Umbrian 𐌔𐌄𐌔𐌕𐌖 (sestu, “to place”), Greek στέκω (stéko), στέκομαι (stékomai, “to stand up”), Albanian shtoj (“to add; to augment; to...

From Latin stolo. See stolon.

Words formed from stool

Phrases with stool

Words that rhyme with stool

42 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about stool

What does stool mean?
Stool means a seat for one person without a back or armrests.
What is stool in Hindi?
Stool in Hindi is तिपाई (tipāī), पीढ़ा (pīṛhā), चौकी (caukī). See Stool meaning in Hindi.
How do you use stool in a sentence?
The diameter of a stool is thus directly related to its age. […] stool 1.
What part of speech is stool?
Stool can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce stool?
Stool is pronounced /stuːl/.
What is the plural of stool?
The plural of stool is stools.

Words near stool in the dictionary

  1. stookies
  2. stooking
  3. stooks
  4. Stooksbury
  5. Stooksburys
  6. stool
  7. stool of easement
  8. stool of repentance
  9. stool pigeon
  10. stool pigeons
  11. stool softener

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stool (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:

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

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