▪ I. stabble, n. dial.
(ˈstæb(ə)l)
[f. the verb.]
Liquid mud caused by continuous traffic or treading with the feet; also dirty footmarks.
| 1825 Cobbett Rur. Rides 10 The street..has been kept in a sort of stabble by the flocks of sheep passing along. 1863 Wise New Forest Gloss., Stabble, marks, footprints, always used in the plural. |
▪ II. stabble, v. dial.
(ˈstæb(ə)l)
[Perhaps a frequentative f. stab v.: see -le. (For the assumed sense-development cf. poach v.2 4, 5; see also stable v.3)]
a. trans. To soil (a place) by treading dirt about. b. intr. To tread dirt about. c. trans. To reduce (ground) to mire or liquid mud by continual treading.
| 1838 Holloway Provinc., To stabble, to dirty any place, by walking on it with wet and filthy shoes. Hants. 1856 C. M. Yonge Daisy Chain xv. 148 The woman said she would not take half-a-crown a week to have a lot of children stabbling about, as she called it. 1858 Hughes Scour. White Horse vii, 'T'aint a mossell o' use to bide stabbleing here [Footnote. ‘Stabble’—to tread dirt about]. 1893 Wiltshire Gloss., Stabble,..to poach up [ground] by continual treading, as near a field gateway. |