stook

Etymology

From Middle English stowk, stouke, stouc, from or cognate with Middle Low German stûke (“bundle of grain”), from Middle Low German stûken (“to push, bump, compress”), from Old Saxon *stūkan, from Proto-Germanic *stūkaną (“to be stiff, push”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tewg- (“to pound, push, beat”). Cognate with West Frisian stûkje (“to pile up, stop”), Dutch stuiken (“to bundle, stamp”), German stauchen (“to compress”), Swedish stuka (“to rick, wrench, upset”), Norwegian Nynorsk stauka (“to whack, chop”).

noun

1. A pile or bundle, especially of straw.
2. (specifically) A group of 6 or 8 sheaves of grain stacked to dry vertically in a rectangular arrangement at harvest time, largely obsolete since the advent of combine harvesters and powered grain driers (mid 20th century).
   And on the road home they lay among the stooks and maybe Ellison did this and that to make sure of getting her, he was fair desperate for any woman by then. 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 16
   The wheat, tawny with ripeness, had been cut and stood in tented stooks about the fields, while a few ghostly poppies lingered at the edge of the path. 1958, Iris Murdoch, The Bell

verb

1. (intransitive, agriculture) To make stooks.