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Oct 14, 2025
This week’s themeIdioms & metaphors This week’s words stile millstone ![]() ![]()
On the Stile, 1878
Art: Winslow Homer
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with Anu Gargstile
PRONUNCIATION:
MEANING:
noun: 1. A set of steps or rungs allowing a person to go across a fence or wall while denying animals access. 2. A turnstile: a revolving gate that controls access to an area. 3. A support for overcoming an obstacle. ETYMOLOGY:
From Old English stigel (stile). Earliest documented use: before 1150.
USAGE:
“We climbed over a fence stile and into a field that a neighboring
farmer’s herd of Jersey cattle frequently visited.” Mark Singer; Stringer’s Way; The New Yorker; Jun 5, 2006. “The prose sometimes gets too heavy. Some publishers employ editors to help the tired writer over a stile.” From Danzig to Nagasaki via Yalta; The Economist (London, UK); Apr 2, 1994. See more usage examples of stile in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have
persuaded him he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as
he is scared, and then he is gone. -Dwight D. Eisenhower, US general and
34th president (14 Oct 1890-1969)
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