Word.ws English Dictionary

stound

UK/staʊnd/US/staʊnd/

stound noun: an hour.

Noun (1)

stound (plural stounds)

  1. (dialectal, obsolete) An hour.
    • What booth wilt thou have? our king reply'd / Now tell me in this stound1765, Percy's Reliques, The King and the Tanner of Tamworth (original license: 1564)
  2. (obsolete) A tide, season.
  3. (archaic, dialectal) A time, length of time, hour, while.
    • He lay and slept, and swet a stound, / And became whole and sound.1801, Walter Scott, The Talisman
  4. (archaic, dialectal) A brief span of time, moment, instant.
    • Listen to me a little stound.
    • And in that same stound / All suddenly she swapt adown to ground.1883 [a. 1400], Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Clerk's Tale”, in Henry Morley, editor, Cassell's Library of English Literature, volume 1, page 48
  5. A moment or instance of urgency; exigence.
  6. (dialectal) A sharp or sudden pain; a shock, an attack.
    • No wonder that they cried unto the Lord, and felt a stound of despair shake their courage1857, Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture
    • ere the point arriued, where it ought, / That seuen-fold shield, which he from Guyon brought / He cast betwene to ward the bitter stound [...].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  7. A stroke or blow (from an object or weapon); (by extension) a lashing; scourging
    • How many pipes, as many sounds Do still impart To your Sonne's hart / As many deadly wounds : How many strokes, as many stounds, Each stroke a dart, Each stound a smart, Poore captive me confounds.1807, Sir Egerton Brydges, Censura Literaria
    • A colt is made of three stounds, I think; it is lighter, much, than the cat. The punishment with the colt is always given without stripping, over the clothes.1843, Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, Proceedings of the Court of Inquiry appointed to inquire into the intended mutiny on board the United States Brig of War Somers, on the high seas
  8. A fit, an episode or sudden outburst of emotion; a rush.
    • Several stounds of pain in the cleft between great and second toe (anterior tibial nerve). I forget which side, but I think it was the right. Slight pains in left temple, > pressure. Pain in upper part of right eyeball.1893, The Homoeopathic World
    • […] and run away with him, almost whether he will or not, in a stound of unbearable love!1895, Mansie Wauch, The Life of Mansie Wauch: tailor in Dalkeith
  9. Astonishment; amazement.
    • Lightly he started up out of that stound.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
    • we stood as in a stound, / And wet with tears, like dew, the ground1720, John Gay, “Prologue”, in Poems on Several Occasions

Verb (1)

stound (third-person singular simple present stounds, present participle stounding, simple past and past participle stounded)

  1. (dialectal, intransitive, obsolete) To hurt, pain, smart.
    • Your wrath, weak boy ? Tremble at mine unless
      Retraction follow close upon the heels
      Of that late stounding insult […]1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, act IV, scene II, verses 93-95
  2. (dialectal, intransitive, obsolete) To be in pain or sorrow, mourn.
  3. (dialectal, intransitive, obsolete) To long or pine after, desire.
    • Recently weaned children "stound after the breast."1823, Edward Moor, Suffolk words and phrases: or, An attempt to collect the lingual localisms of that county

Verb (2)

stound (third-person singular simple present stounds, present participle stounding, simple past and past participle stounded)

  1. (intransitive, obsolete) To stand still; stop.
  2. (UK, dialectal, intransitive) To stop to listen; pause.

Noun (2)

stound (plural stounds)

  1. (UK, dialectal) A stand; a stop.

Noun (3)

stound (plural stounds)

  1. A receptacle for holding small beer.
    • Will Ardnamurchan never end? We're four stounds in a metal box [...]1987, Alastair Mackie, Ingaidherins: Selected Poems - Page 54

Synonyms of stound

29 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of stound

Forms of stound

Noun
pluralstounds
alternative Scotlandstund
alternative Scotlandstoind
alternative Scotlandstoond
alternative Scotlandstoon
alternative Scotlandstoun
alternative Scotlandstuind
Verb
third-person singular presentstounds
present participlestounding
past participlestounded
paststounded

Origin of stound

From Middle English stond, stounde, stound (“hour, time, season, moment”), from Old English stund (“a period of time, while, hour, occasion”), from Proto-West Germanic *stundu, from Proto-Germanic *stundō (“point in time, hour”), from Proto-Indo-European *stut- (“prop”), from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (“to stand”). Cognate with Scots stound (“while, period of time, moment, sudden pain, pang, stroke, blow”), dated Dutch stond (“hour, time, moment”), Low German Stund (“hour”), German Stunde (“hour”), Danish stund (“time, while”), and Swedish stund (“time, while”). Compare Middle English stunden (“to linger, stay, remain for a while”), Icelandic stunda (“to frequent, pursue”). Related to stand.

From Middle English stounden, stunden (“to linger, stay, remain for a while”), from Old English *stundian, from Proto-West Germanic *stundōn, from Proto-Germanic *stundōną. Cognate with German stunden (“to defer payment, give time to pay”), Icelandic stunda (“to frequent, pursue”). More at stand.

From Middle English stound, stonde, stoonde, ston, from Old English stond (“a stand”). Compare stand.

Words formed from stound

Words that rhyme with stound

45 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about stound

What does stound mean?
Stound means an hour.
What part of speech is stound?
Stound can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce stound?
Stound is pronounced /staʊnd/ (UK).
What is the plural of stound?
The plural of stound is stounds.

Words near stound in the dictionary

  1. stouked
  2. stouking
  3. stouks
  4. Stoulton
  5. stoun
  6. stound
  7. stounded
  8. stounding
  9. stoundmeal
  10. stounds
  11. stouns

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stound (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.

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