Stoop

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /stuːp/
• Rhymes: -uːp

From Dutch stoep ("platform", "pavement"). Cognate with English "step".

Full definition of stoop

Noun

1. (chiefly Northeastern US, chiefly New York, also, Canada) The staircase and landing or porch leading to the entrance of a residence.
• 1856 James Fenimore Cooper, Satanstoe or The Littlepage Manuscripts: A Tale of the Colony (London, 1856) page 110Nearly all the houses were built with their gables to the streets and each had heavy wooden Dutch stoops, with seats, at its door.
• 1905 Carpentry and Building, vol. 27 (January 1905), NY: David Williams Company, page 2...the entrance being at the side of the house and reached by a low front stoop with four or five risers...
2. The threshold of a doorway, a doorstep.
• 1902, Gustav Kobbé, Signora: a child of the opera house, A short flight of iron steps leads up to it and a storm door is built over the stoop, forming a little vestibule, and serving to keep out the gusts.
• 1975, Laurraine Goreau, Just Mahalia, Baby: The Mahalia Jackson Story, You better hurry up and get strong, if you going to carry me across the stoop.
• 1997, Peter S. Feibleman, A place without twilight, Holding her breath while she set one foot over the stoop and followed it up into the house
• 1999, Nora Gallagher, Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith, She grins at me and lifts her walker over the stoop.

Synonyms

• (small porch) porch, verandah
• (doorstep) step, doorstep

From Old English stūpian ("to bow, to bend"). Compare steep.

Verb

1. To bend the upper part of the body forward and downward.He stooped to tie his shoe-laces.
• 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, The House Behind the Cedars, Chapter I,Their walk had continued not more than ten minutes when they crossed a creek by a wooden bridge and came to a row of mean houses standing flush with the street. At the door of one, an old black woman had stooped to lift a large basket, piled high with laundered clothes.
• 2010, December 28, Kevin Darlin, West Brom 1 - 3 Blackburn, Pedersen took a short corner and El-Hadji Diouf was given time to send in a cross for Mame Diouf to stoop and head home from close range.
2. To lower oneself; to demean or do something below one's status, standards, or morals.Can you believe that a salesman would stoop so low as to hide his customers' car keys until they agreed to the purchase?
3. Of a bird of prey: to swoop down on its prey.
• 1882 1875, Thomas Bewick, James Reiveley, William Harvey, The Parlour Menagerie, 4th ed., p. 63:Presently the bird stooped and seized a salmon, and a violent struggle ensued.
4. (transitive) To cause to incline downward; to slant.to stoop a cask of liquor
5. (transitive) To cause to submit; to prostrate.
• ChapmanMany of those whose states so tempt thine ears
  Are stooped by death; and many left alive.
6. To yield; to submit; to bend, as by compulsion; to assume a position of humility or subjection.
• DrydenMighty in her ships stood Carthage long, ...
  Yet stooped to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong.
• AddisonThese are arts, my prince,
  In which your Zama does not stoop to Rome.
7. To descend from rank or dignity; to condescend.
• GoldsmithShe stoops to conquer.
• Francis BaconWhere men of great wealth stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly.
8. To degrade.

Synonyms

• bend down

Derived terms

• stoop and roop

Noun

1. A stooping (ie. bent, see the "Verb" section above) position of the bodyThe old man walked with a stoop.
• 2011, Phil McNulty, Euro 2012: Montenegro 2-2 England http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/15195384.stmTheo Walcott's final pass has often drawn criticism but there could be no complaint in the 11th minute when his perfect delivery to the far post only required a stoop and a nod of the head from Young to put England ahead.
2. An accelerated descent in flight, as that for an attack.
• 1819, Washington Irving, Bracebridge Hall: :At length the hawk got the upper hand, and made a rushing stoop at her quarry

Derived terms

• stoopy

From Middle English, from Old Norse stolpe

Alternative forms

• stoup

Noun

1. (dialect) A post or pillar, especially a gatepost or a support in a mine.

Derived terms

• stoup and room

Old English stope

Alternative forms

• stoup

Noun

1. A vessel of liquor; a flagon.
• ShakespeareFetch me a stoop of liquor.

Anagrams

• poots
• topos