ˈwalking-staff Now rare.
[walking vbl. n.1]
A staff or long stick which one carries in the hand for support or aid in walking. Also fig.
| 1546 J. Heywood Prov. i. x. (1867) 21 Now I well understand The walkyng staffe hath caught warmth in your hand. 1593 Shakes. Rich. II, iii. iii. 151 Ile giue..My Scepter, for a Palmers walking Staffe. 1694 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) III. 365 A person was taken in St. James Park with 2 pistolls laden in his pocket, his walking staffe being a gunn. 1726 Swift Gulliver ii. i, The farmer..took a piece of a small straw, about the size of a walking-staff. 1784 Blake Poet. Sk., Song Old Sheph., Virtue is our walking-staff. 1846 Keightley Notes Virg., Flora 383 It [Ferula communis] is common in Apulia, where the shepherds make walking-staffs of it. 1876 Rock Textile Fabrics 9 Returning, they brought with them a number of eggs [of silkworms] hidden in their walking-staves. |