potstick Now only dial.
(ˈpɒtstɪk)
Forms: see pot n.1 and stick n.; also 5 pos(s)tyke, postyk(ke.
[f. pot n.1 + stick n.]
A stick for stirring porridge or anything cooked in a pot. Also, a stick used for moving washing about in a pot.
| c 1410 Master of Game (MS. Digby 182) xii, Stere it alle togyders agayne þe bothome of þe dysshe with a potstyke [v.r. posstyke]. Ibid., Stere it wele aboute vpon þe fyre with a potstyke [v.rr. postykke, pottstik]. c 1440 Anc. Cookery in Househ. Ord. (1790) 469 When hit is boyled put in a potstik and stere hit wel. 15.. Jack Juggler (Grosart) 36 By cokes precious potstike, I wyll not home this night. 1612 Proc. Virginia 44 in Capt. Smith's Wks. (Arb.) 123 The next [had] in her hand a sword; another, a club; another a pot-stick... The rest, every one with their severall devises. 1847 Mrs. Carlyle in New Lett. & Mem. (1903) I. 236 A pair of stockings..which seemed to have been knitted for two pot-sticks rather than for well-shaped..woman's legs. 1869 H. Ussher in Eng. Mech. 3 Dec. 271/3 It beats Sir Roger de Coverley ‘to potsticks’. 1894 S. R. Crockett Lilac Sunbonnet xxvii. 225 She turns roon' wi' the pat-stick i' her haund. 1903 Somerville & ‘Ross’ All on Irish Shore 9 He..had, in addition, boiled the meal for the hounds with a knowledge of proportion and an untiring devotion to the use of the pot⁓stick which produced ‘stirabout’ of a smoothness and excellence that Miss Barnet herself might have been proud of. 1922 Joyce Ulysses 223 Maggy at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds twice with her potstick and wiped her brow. 1961 F. G. Cassidy Jamaica Talk v. 86 To stir cooking food one uses a pot-stick. |