stool

 
Pronunciation: /stuːl/

noun

  • 1a seat without a back or arms, typically resting on three or four legs or on a single pedestal.
  • 2a piece of faeces: fibre in the child’s diet will soften the stools [mass noun]: concentrations of the substance in normal stool
  • 3a root or stump of a tree or plant from which shoots spring.
  • 4US a decoy bird in hunting.

verb

[no object]
  • (of a plant) throw up shoots from the root.
  • [with object] cut back (a plant) to or near ground level in order to induce new growth.

Phrases

at stool

Medicine when defecating: it may be induced by a hard bowel movement or straining at stool

fall between two stools

British fail to be or take one of two satisfactory alternatives: the work fell between two stools, being neither genuinely popular nor truly scholarly

Origin:

Old English, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch stoel, German Stuhl, also to stand. Current senses of the verb date from the late 18th century