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al climbing plants, usually with a prickly woody stem; green brier, or cat brier. The rootstocks of certain species are the source of the medicine called sarsaparilla.

A knit or woven covering for the foot and lower leg; a stocking with a short leg.

genus Polygonatum, having simple erect or curving stems rising from thick and knotted rootstocks, and with white or greenish nodding flowers. The commonest European species is Polygonatum multiflorum. P. biflorum and P. giganteum are common in the Eastern United States. See Illust. of Rootstock. False Solomon's seal (B…

An object of derision; a laughingstock. And now am I their song. yea, I am their byword. Job xxx. 9.

To scatter seed upon, in, or over; to supply or stock, as land, with seeds. Also used figuratively: To scatter over; to besprinkle. The intellectual faculty is a goodly field, . . . and it is the worst husbandry in the world to sow it with trifles. Sir M. Hale. [He] sowed with stars the heaven. Milton. Now morn . . . s…

nd worthy of special notice; a remarkable or noteworthy sight; a show; a pageant; a gazingstock. O, piteous spectacle O, bloody times! Shak.

e, of unsound or hazardous transactions; as, to speculate in coffee, in sugar, or in bank stock.

pindle (Mach.), a spindle in a machine tool that does not revolve; the spindle of the tailstock of a lathe. -- Live spindle (Mach.), the revolving spindle of a machine tool; the spindle of the headstock of a turning lathe. -- Spindle shell. (Zoöl.) See Spindle, 7. above. -- Spindle side, the female side in descent;…

A privilege which one person buys of another, of demanding certain shares of stock at a certain price, or of delivering the same shares of stock at another price, within a time agreed upon. [Broker's Cant]

A stockade. [Scot.] Sir W. Scott.

An outside irregular dealer in stocks, who is not a member of the exchange. [Cant]

The stock or handle of anything; as, the stale of a rake. [Written also steal, stele, etc.] But seeling the arrow's stale without, and that the head did go No further than it might be seen. Chapman.

ing or standing upon its own root, in distinction from one produced from a scion set in a stock, either of the same or another kind of tree.

A tree of natural size supported by its own stem, and not dwarfed by grafting on the stock of a smaller species nor trained upon a wall or trellis. In France part of their gardens is laid out for flowers, others for fruits; some standards, some against walls. Sir W. Temple.

Arbuthnot. For the increase of trade and the encouragement of the worthy burgesses of Woodstock, her majesty was minded to erect the town into a staple for wool. Sir W. Scott.

The principal body of a tree, shrub, or plant, of any kind; the main stock; the part which supports the branches or the head or top. After they are shot up thirty feet in length, they spread a very large top, having no bough nor twig in the trunk or the stem. Sir W. Raleigh. The lowering spring, with lavish rain, Beats…

Stock; race; family. [Obs.] Bacon.

The breeding of special stocks or races.

Stock; race; family. Blackstone.

See Stockade.