Stag (The) symbolizes Christ, because (according to fable) it draws serpents by its breath out of their holes, and then tramples them to death.—Pliny: Natural History, viii. 50.
Stag or Hind, emblem of the tribe of Naphtali. In the old church at Totness is a stone pulpit divided into compartments, containing shields bearing the emblems of the Jewish tribes, this being one.
Naphtali is a hind let loose.—Gen. xlix. 21.
Stag’s Horn, considered in Spain a safeguard against the evil eye; hence, a small horn, silver-tipped, is often hung on the neck of a child. If an evil eye is then cast on the child, it enters the horn, which it bursts asunder.
Have you a stag’s horn with you?
Longfellow: The Spanish Student, iii. 5.
Stagg (Benjamin), the proprietor of the cellar in the Barbican where the secret society of “’Prentice Knights” used to convene. He was a blind man, who fawned on Mr. Sim Tappertit, “the ‘prentices’ glory” and captain of the “’Prentice Knights” But there was a disparity between his words and sentiments, if we may judge from this specimen: “Good night, most noble captain! farewell, brave general! bye-bye, illustrious commander!—a conceited, bragging, empty-headed, duck-legged idiot!” Benjamin Stagg was shot by the soldiery in the Gordon riots. —Dickens: Barnaby Rudge (1841).
Stagirite . Aristotle is called the Stagi rite because he was born at Stagira, in Macedon. Almost all our English poets call the word Stagirite: as Pope, Thomson, Swift, Byron, Wordsworth, B. Browning, etc.; but it should be Stagirite (StageirithV).
Your rivals throng, the sages.
—R. Browning: Paracelsus,
—Wordsworth.
—Thomson.
—Popt.
Who says his numbers do not fadge aright.
—Swift: To Dr. Sheridan (1718).
Stagirius, a young monk to whom St. Chrysostom addressed three books, and of whom those books give an account. Matthew Arnold has a prayer in verse supposed to be uttered by Stagirius.
Stamboul , Constantinople.
And Stamboul’s minarets must greet my sight. Byron: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809).
Stammerer (The), Louis II. of France, le Bégue (846, 877–879).
Michael II. emperor of the East (*, 820–829).
Notker or Notger of St. Gall (830– 912).
Stanchells, head jailer at the Glasgow tolbooth.—Sir W. Scott: Rob Roy (time, George I.).
Standard. A substantial building for water supplies, as the Water Standard of Cornhill, the Standard in Cheap, opposite Honey Lane, “which John Wells, grocer, caused to be made [? rebuilt] in his mayoralty, 1430.”—Stow: Survey (“Cheapside”).