different between sty vs qty

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sta?/
• Rhymes: -a?

Etymology 1

From Middle English sty, from Old English st?, sti? (“sty, pen, a wooden enclosure; hall”, chiefly in compounds), from Proto-Germanic *stij?. Cognate with German Steige (“hen-coop”), Danish sti (“enclosure for swine, sheep, hens, etc.”), Swedish stia (“sty for pigs, geese, etc.”), Norwegian sti (“flock of sheep”), Icelandic stía (“a kennel”).

Noun

sty (plural sties)

1. A pen or enclosure for swine.
2. (figuratively) A messy, dirty or debauched place.

Synonyms

• (enclosure for swine): pigpen, pigsty
• (messy or dirty place): hovel, pigsty

Translations

Verb

sty (third-person singular simple present sties, present participle stying, simple past and past participle stied)

1. To place in, or as if in, a sty
2. To live in a sty, or any messy or dirty place

Etymology 2

From Middle English stien, sti?en, from Old English st??an (“to go; ascend, mount”), from Proto-Germanic *st?gan?, from Proto-Indo-European *steyg?-. Cognate with Dutch stijgen, German steigen, Norwegian Bokmål stige, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish stiga, Old Norse stíga.

Alternative forms

• stee, stie, stigh, stye

Verb

sty (third-person singular simple present sties, present participle stying, simple past and past participle stied)

1. (obsolete) To ascend, rise up, climb. [9th-17th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.xi:

     The beast impatient of his smarting wound, / And of so fierce and forcible despight, / Thought with his wings to stye aboue the ground [...].

   • From this lower tract he dared to stie up to the clowdes.

   • 1621, Richard Montague, Diatribae upon the first part of the late History of Tithes

     Led along, as some Creatures are, by the Noses, and voluntarily hood-winked; or like seeled Doves, sty up, you know not whither, nor how far.

   • 1652, Edward Benlowes, Theophila, or Love's Sacrifice

     That she might sty to the seat of Beatifick Mirth.

Derived terms

• styan
• stirrup

Related terms

• stile

Translations

Noun

sty (plural sties)

1. (Britain, dialectal) A ladder.

Translations

Etymology 3

Probably a back-formation from styany, mistaken for "sty-on-eye" but correctly from Middle English styany, composed of styan ("sty"; from Old English st??ende, present participle of st?gan (“to rise”)) + y (“eye”).

Alternative forms

• stye

Noun

sty (plural sties)

1. (medicine) An inflammation of the eyelid.

Translations

Anagrams

• YTS

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English sti?, st?, from Proto-Germanic *stij?.

Alternative forms

• stye, sty?e

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sti?/

Noun

sty (plural styes)

2. A pigsty (pen or set of pens for pigs)
3. (rare) Any other crude dwelling or abode.

Descendants

• English: sty

References

• “st?, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-08.

Etymology 2

From Old English st??, from Proto-Germanic *st?g?.

Alternative forms

• sti, stie, stye, stiyhe, sti?e, sti?he

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sti?/

Noun

sty (plural styes or sti?en)

2. A path, track or street.
3. (figuratively) One's chosen pathway or choices in life.
4. (figuratively, rare) A short narrative.

References

• “st?(e, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-08.

English

Alternative forms

• q'ty

Noun

qty (plural qties)

1. Abbreviation of quantity.