Stir vs Stagger - What's the difference?
stir | stagger | Related terms |
To change the place of in any manner; to move.
*(rfdate), (Sir William Temple)
*:My foot I had never yet in five days been able to stir .
(lb) To disturb the relative position of the particles of, as of a liquid, by passing something through it; to agitate.
:
*(rfdate), (William Shakespeare)
*:My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred .
(lb) To agitate the content of (a container) by passing something through it.
:
(lb) To bring into debate; to agitate; to moot.
*(rfdate), (Francis Bacon)
*:Stir not questions of jurisdiction.
(lb) To incite to action; to arouse; to instigate; to prompt; to excite.
*(rfdate) (Chaucer)
*:To stir men to devotion.
*(rfdate), (William Shakespeare)
*:An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife.
*(rfdate), (John Dryden)
*:And for her sake some mutiny will stir .
*1922 , (Margery Williams), (The Velveteen Rabbit)
*:That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst.
(lb) To move; to change one’s position.
*(rfdate) (Byron)
*:I had not power to stir or strive, But felt that I was still alive.
(lb) To be in motion; to be active or bustling; to exert or busy oneself.
*(rfdate) (Byron)
*:All are not fit with them to stir and toil.
*(rfdate) (Charles Merivale)
*:The friends of the unfortunate exile, far from resenting his unjust suspicions, were stirring anxiously in his behalf.
(lb) To become the object of notice; to be on foot.
*(rfdate), (Isaac Watts)
*:They fancy they have a right to talk freely upon everything that stirs or appears.
To rise, or be up and about, in the morning.
*
*:"Mid-Lent, and the Enemy grins," remarked Selwyn as he started for church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday supplements, refused to stir ; poor little Eileen was now convalescent from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the grippe, and now moaned all day: "Mon dieu! Mon dieu! Che fais mourir! "
The act or result of stirring; agitation; tumult; bustle; noise or various movements.
* (rfdate), .
* (rfdate), .
Public disturbance or commotion; tumultuous disorder; seditious uproar.
* (rfdate), .
Agitation of thoughts; conflicting passions.
(lb) Jail; prison.
:
*
*:The Bat—they called him the Bat.. He'd never been in stir , the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face. Most lone wolves had a moll at any rate—women were their ruin—but if the Bat had a moll, not even the grapevine telegraph could locate her.
An unsteady movement of the body in walking or standing, as if one were about to fall; a reeling motion; vertigo; -- often in the plural; as, the stagger of a drunken man.
A disease of horses and other animals, attended by reeling, unsteady gait or sudden falling; as, parasitic staggers; apoplectic or sleepy staggers.
bewilderment; perplexity.
In motorsport, the difference in circumference between the left and right tires on a racing vehicle. It is used on oval tracks to make the car turn better in the corners.
sway unsteadily, reel, or totter
# In standing or walking, to sway from one side to the other as if about to fall; to stand or walk unsteadily; to reel or totter.
#* Dryden
# To cause to reel or totter.
#* Shakespeare
# To cease to stand firm; to begin to give way; to fail.
#* Addison
doubt, waver, be shocked
# To begin to doubt and waver in purposes; to become less confident or determined; to hesitate.
#* Bible, Rom. iv. 20
# To cause to doubt and waver; to make to hesitate; to make less steady or confident; to shock.
#* Howell
#* Burke
Multiple groups doing the same thing in a uniform fashion, but starting at different, evenly-spaced, times or places (attested from 1856
# To arrange (a series of parts) on each side of a median line alternately, as the spokes of a wheel or the rivets of a boiler seam.
# To arrange similar objects such that each is ahead or above and to one side of the next.
# To schedule in intervals.
Stir is a related term of stagger.
As nouns the difference between stir and stagger
is that stir is scorpion while stagger is an unsteady movement of the body in walking or standing, as if one were about to fall; a reeling motion; vertigo; -- often in the plural; as, the stagger of a drunken man.As a verb stagger is
sway unsteadily, reel, or totter.stir
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) stiren, from (etyl) styrian, from (etyl) .Verb
(stirr)Usage notes
* In all transitive senses except the first, (term) is often followed by (up) with an intensive effect; as, (term); (term).Synonyms
* (to move) incite; awaken; rouse; animate; stimulate; excite; provoke.Derived terms
* stir-fry * stirrer * stir up * straw that stirs the drinkNoun
- Why all these words, this clamor, and this stir ?
- ''Consider, after so much stir about genus and species, how few words we have yet settled definitions of.
- Being advertised of some stirs raised by his unnatural sons in England.
Etymology 2
(en)Noun
(-)Anagrams
* * English ergative verbs ----stagger
English
Noun
(en noun)Stock Car Racing magazine article on stagger, February 2009
Verb
(en verb)- She began to stagger across the room.
- Deep was the wound; he staggered with the blow.
- The powerful blow of his opponent's fist staggered the boxer.
- That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire / That staggers thus my person.
- The enemy staggers .
- He [Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief.
- He will stagger the committee when he presents his report.
- Whosoever will read the story of this war will find himself much staggered .
- Grants to the house of Russell were so enormous, as not only to outrage economy, but even to stagger credibility.
Etymology] in [[:w:Online Etymology Dictionary, Online Etymology Dictionary]).
- We will stagger the starting positions for the race on the oval track.
- We will stagger the run so the faster runners can go first, then the joggers.