stool

Meaning

Noun

1. A seat, especially for one person and without armrests.
2. A seat, especially for one person and without armrests.
3. A seat, especially for one person and without armrests.
4. A seat, especially for one person and without armrests.
5. A close-stool; a seat used for urination and defecation: a chamber pot, commode, outhouse seat, or toilet.
6. A plant that has been cut down until its main stem is close to the ground, resembling a stool, to promote new growth.
7. Feces, excrement.
8. A production of feces or excrement, an act of defecation, stooling.
9. A decoy; a portable piece of wood to which a pigeon is fastened to lure wild birds.
10. A small channel on the side of a vessel, for the deadeyes of the backstays.
11. Material, such as oyster shells, spread on the sea bottom for oyster spat to adhere to.

Verb

1. To produce stool: to defecate.
2. To cut down (a plant) until its main stem is close to the ground, resembling a stool, to promote new growth.

Verb

To ramify; to tiller, as grain; to shoot out suckers.

Pronounced as (IPA)

/stuːl/

Etymology

From Middle English stool, stole, stol, from Old English stōl (“chair, seat, throne”), from Proto-West Germanic *stōl, from Proto-Germanic *stōlaz (“chair”) (compare West Frisian stoel, Dutch stoel, German Stuhl, Swedish/Norwegian/Danish stol, Finnish tuoli, Estonian tool), from Proto-Indo-European *stoh₂los (compare Lithuanian stálas, Russian стол (stol, “table”), Russian стул (stul, “chair”), Serbo-Croatian stol (“table”), Slovene stol (“chair”), Albanian kështallë (“crutch”), Ancient Greek στήλη (stḗlē, “block of stone used as a prop or buttress to a wall”)), from *steh₂- (“to stand”). More at stand.
The medical use derives from sense 2 (seat used for defecation).