white stick
[stick n.1]
† 1. A piece of white wood used as a tally. Obs.
| c 1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 233 Lordis many tymes..taken pore mennus goodis & paien not þerfore but white stickis. c 1400 Pilgr. Sowle iv. xxxviii. (1859) 64 The kyng hath nought wherof to paye for his mete, but of white stikkes that no thyng auailen. |
2. = white staff 1, 2.
| 1777 Earl of March in Jesse Selwyn & Contemp. (1844) III. 256 Lord Onslow [as Comptroller of the Household] has Sir W. Meredith's White Stick. 1792 Wolcot (P. Pindar) Odes of Condol. i. vi. Wks. 1812 III. 86 Then would they ponder on the white-stick row Of Uxbridge, Grey de Wilton, Leeds, and Co. 1812 Byron Waltz xiii, New white-sticks, gold-sticks, broom-sticks, all new sticks! 1861 Hughes Tom Brown at Oxf. iii, Lords and ladies in waiting, white sticks or black rods. |
3. A white walking-stick carried by a blind person both as a distinguishing feature and to locate obstacles. Cf white cane s.v. white a. 11 e.
| 1961 A.A. Handbk. 20 Responsible blind welfare organizations strongly recommend all blind persons to carry a white stick. 1967 S. Beckett Stories & Texts for Nothing viii. 110 But what is this I see, and how, a white stick and an ear-trumpet. 1974 Times 21 Feb. 10 His first perilous adventures with the white stick. 1978 ‘H. Carmichael’ Life Cycle xiv. 150 The man who doesn't admire you shouldn't be allowed out in the street without a white stick. |