Stocking. In one's stockings (or stocking-feet), adv. phr. (colloquial).—Without shoes.
1809. Irving, Knickerbocker, 168. The mistress and chambermaid visited the house once a week . . . leaving their shoes at the door, and entering devotedly in their stocking-feet.
1854-5. Thackeray, Newcomes, viii. Binnie found the Colonel in his sitting-room, arrayed in what are called in Scotland his stocking-feet.
Long-stocking, subs. phr. (common).—Means in plenty; resources.
Stock-in-trade, subs. phr. (colloquial).—The
privities, male and
female.
Stock-jobber (Stock-jobbing,
&c.), subs. phr. (old: now recognised).—See
quots.
c.1696. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Stock-jobbing, a sharp, cunning-cheating Trade of Buying and Selling Shares of Stock in East India, Guinea and other Companies; also in the Bank, Exchequer, &c.
1703. Steele, Tender Husband, ii. 1. Public Knaves and Stock-Jobbers pass for Wits at her end of the Town, as common Cheats and Gamesters do at yours.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Stock Jobbers. Persons who gamble on the Stock Exchange pretending to buy and sell public funds, but only betting that they will be at a certain price at a particular time; possessing neither stock to be sold, nor money to make good the payments, known [as] bulls, bears and lame ducks.—[Abridged.]
Stockport-coach, subs. phr.
(old).—A horse with two women
riding sidewise.
Adj. (colloquial).—Very; completely: usually in combination: thus stock-still = entirely at rest; stock-blind = absolutely sightless, &c. cf. stone.
1675. Wycherley, Country Wife, ii. 1. True lovers are blind, stock-blind.
1759. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, i. 22. If he begins a digression from that moment, I observe, his whole work stands stock-still.
1809. Malkin, Gil Blas [Routledge], 91. I stood stock-still in the street, not a little stiffened at this vision.
Stocky, adj. (colloquial).—1.
Short and stout; lumpy; stumpy
(q.v.).
1712. Addison, Spectator, 433. They had no titles of honour among them but such as denoted some bodily strength or perfection; as, such a one 'the tall,' such a one 'the stocky,' such a one 'the gruff.'
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, iv. It is the fault of their forms that they grow stocky, and the women have that disadvantage—few tall slender figures of flowing shape, but stunted and thick-set persons.
2. (provincial).—'Irritable, headstrong and contrary, combined' (Halliwell). Also (3) impudent, brassy (q.v.).
1856. Eliot, Amos Barton, v. He was a boy whom Mrs. Hackit in a severe mood had pronounced stocky.
Stodge, subs. (common).—1. Food;
(2) a heavy meal; and (3) the
crumb of new bread (Charterhouse).
As verb. = to gorge;
to stuff (q.v.). Hence stodgy
(or stodge-full) = distended,
lumpy, crammed; stodger = (1)
a gormandiser; and (2) a penny
bun.
1860. Eliot, Mill on the Floss, i. 5. 'You don't know what I've got in my pockets' . . . 'No,' said Maggie. 'How stodgy they look, Tom.'
Verb. (Tonbridge School).—To hurt.
Stogy, adj. (colloquial).—Generic
for coarseness: thus stogy-shooes
(or stogies) = heavy
shoes; stogy-cigar = a rough
coarse cigar.
