stoit, v. dial.
(stɔɪt)
[? a. Du. stuiten to rebound, bounce (? adopted as a term of some ballgame). But cf. stot v. in similar senses.]
1. Sc. a. intr. ‘To rebound, bounce’ (Eng. Dial. Dict.). b. To move unsteadily, stumble, lurch; to walk with unsteady movements. Also with about, along.
| 1719 W. Hamilton Ep. Ramsay ii. 62 Wi' writing I'm sae bliert and doited, That when I raise, in troth I stoited. 1787 Burns To Miss Ferrier iii, Last day my mind was in a bog, Down George's Street I stoited. 1794 ― ‘Contented wi' little’ iv, Blind Chance, let her snapper and stoyte on her way. 1818 Scott Hrt. Midl. xxx, I wish ye had seen him stoiting about, aff ae leg on to the other, wi' a kind o' dot-and-go-one sort o' motion. 1864 W. D. Latto Tammas Bodkin xii, We were stoitin' alang, deeply immersed in oor ain cracks. |
2. Of pilchards: To leap above the surface of the water.
| 1825 Encycl. Lond. XX. 435/1 They call the jumping of the fish stoiting. 1836 Yarrell Brit. Fishes II. 101 The Herring..rarely springs from the water, or stoits, as it is called. 1899 Baring-Gould Bk. of West II. xix. 315 The sean-boat is rowed in a circular course round where the fish are stoiting. |
Hence stoit n., a lurch. Phr. to play stoit, to lurch or stagger.
| 1808 A. Scott Poems 164 But fegs, wi' mony a stoit an' stevel, She [sc. a filly] rais'd a trot. 1881 D. Thomson Musings among Heather 118 Rab's road seem'd shorter than 'twas wide, For he play'd stoit frae side to side. |