Word.ws English Dictionary

stour

/ˈstɔː/US/ˈstɔɹ/

stour adjective: tall; big; stout. Also the alternative form of stoor.

Adjective

stour (comparative more stour, superlative most stour)

  1. (dialectal, regional) Tall; big; stout.
  2. (dialectal, regional) Strong; powerful; hardy; robust; sturdy.
  3. (dialectal, regional) Bold; audacious.
  4. (dialectal, regional) Rough in manner; stern; austere; ill-tempered.
  5. (dialectal, regional) Rough; hoarse; deep-toned; harsh.
  6. (dialectal, regional, usually, land) Inflexible, stiff.
    • A fenny gooſe, even as her fleſhe is blacker, ſtoorer, unholſomer, ſo is her feather, for the ſame cauſe, courſer, ſtoorer, and rougher, and therefore I have heard very good fletchers ſay, that the ſecond fether in ſome place is better than the pinion in other ſome.1545, Roger Ascham, Toxophilus, the Schole of Shootinge […], London: […] Edouardi Whytchurch, →OCLC
  7. (obsolete) Resolute; unyielding.

Noun (1)

stour (plural stours)

  1. (UK, Ulster, dialectal) A blowing or deposit of dust; dust in motion or at rest; dust in general.

Adverb

stour (comparative more stour, superlative most stour)

  1. (dialectal) Severely; strongly.

Noun (2)

UK/ˈstaʊə/US/ˈstaʊɚ/

stour (plural stours)

  1. A stake.
  2. A round of a ladder.
  3. A stave in the side of a wagon.
  4. A large pole by which barges are propelled against the stream; a poy.

Noun (3)

stour (plural stours)

  1. (obsolete) An armed battle or conflict.
    • Then there began a passyng harde stoure, for the Romaynes ever wexed ever bygger., Book V
    • This pair, who past have many a dreadful stour, / And proffer now to prove this venture stout, / Alone to this attempt let them go forth, / Alone than thousands of more price and worth.1600, Edward Fairfax, The Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso, XII, xv
  2. (obsolete) A time of struggle or stress.
    • Then gan she waile and weepe, to see that woefull stowre.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  3. (dialectal) Tumult, commotion; confusion.

Proper noun capitalized: Stour

IPA/ˈstaʊəɹ/East Anglia/ˈstʊəɹ/

Stour

  1. A river in Dorset, England, which flows into the English Channel at Christchurch.
  2. A river in Kent, England, running from the confluence of the Great Stour and Little Stour to the English Channel at Pegwell Bay.
  3. A river in Essex and Suffolk, England, flowing into the North Sea at Harwich.
    • The Stour is at its lowest ebb, and the sheen of the flats makes it difficult to tell where ground ends and water begins, out in the bay.2021, A. K. Blakemore, The Manningtree Witches, Granta Books, page 37
  4. A river in Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, England, which joins the Warwickshire Avon near Stratford-on-Avon.
  5. A river in Staffordshire, West Midlands, and Worcestershire, England, which flows into the River Severn.

Also used as

stour is also the alternative form of stoor.

Forms of stour

Adjective
comparativemore stour
superlativemost stour
alternative formstoor
alternative formstoore
alternative formstoure
alternative formstowr
alternative formstuir
alternative formstur
alternative formsture
alternative formsturry
Noun
pluralstours
Adverb
comparativemore stour
superlativemost stour
Verb
third-person singular presentstours
present participlestouring
past participlestoured
paststoured

Origin of stour

From Middle English store, stoor, stour (“tall, powerful”), from Old English stōr (“tall, great, mighty, strong”), from Proto-West Germanic *stōr, from Proto-Germanic *stōraz, *stōrijaz (“great, big, strong”), from Proto-Indo-European *stā-r-, *stō-r- (“steadfast, firm; standing tall; big, bulky”). Cognates Akin to Scots stour (“tall, large, great, stout”), Saterland Frisian stor (“great, many”), Danish, Swedish and Norwegian stor (“large, great”), Icelandic stórr (“large, tall”), Polish stary (“old, ancient”), Albanian stër- (“big, huge”). Compare also stoor, steer, stately.

From Middle English stoure, stourre, from Old Norse staurr (“a stake, pale”), from Proto-Germanic *stauraz (“pole, support”), from Proto-Indo-European *stā- (“to stand, place”). Cognate with Icelandic staur (“a stake, pole”), Ancient Greek σταυρός (staurós, “a stake, cross”).

From Middle English stour, stor (“conflict”) from Anglo-Norman estur (“conflict, struggle”), from Old French estour, estor, estorme, estourmie, estormie (“battle, assault, conflict, tumult”), from Vulgar Latin *estorma, *storma (“battle, conflict, storm”), from Frankish *sturm (“storm, commotion, battle”), from Proto-Germanic *sturmaz (“storm”). Akin to Old High German sturm (“battle, storm”). More at storm.

Words formed from stour

Words that rhyme with stour

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about stour

What does stour mean?
Stour means tall; big; stout.
What part of speech is stour?
Stour can be an adjective, a noun, an adverb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce stour?
Stour is pronounced /ˈstɔː/ (UK).

Words near stour in the dictionary

  1. stoupful
  2. stoupfuls
  3. stouping
  4. stoups
  5. stoupsful
  6. stour
  7. Stour Provost
  8. Stourbridge
  9. stoured
  10. stouring
  11. Stourpaine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stour (page history and authors); Stour (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-stour.wav.

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