English
style
Style comes from Middle English stile ‘writing tool’, and goes back to Latin stilus ‘a stake, pale, spike’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEstilus‘a stake’
- Medieval Latinc. 600–1500stylus
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500stile‘writing tool’
- Englishearliest quotation 1611style
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEstilus‘a stake’
- Medieval Latinc. 600–1500stylus
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500stile‘writing tool’
- Englishearliest quotation 1611style
Earliest quotation: 1611, Iohn Speed [i.e., John Speed]: “[…] Donenald O-Neale, rovvſed out of his lurking holes,…”
The story
The noun is derived from Middle English stile (‘writing tool; piece of written work; characteristic mode of expression; demeanour; person's designation or title; stem of a plant; period of time’) (compare semantic development to по́черк (póčerk, “handwriting, style”)), from Old French estile, or from Medieval Latin stylus, both from Latin stilus (‘pointed instrument; writing tool; composition; characteristic mode of expression; stem of a plant’), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)teyg- (‘to be sharp; to pierce, prick, puncture, stab; to goad’).
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *(s)teyg- ‘to be sharp’
attack, stock, stick, tiger, stigma, etiquette, stitch, detach, instigate, tigress, 9 more
through Latin stilus ‘a stake, pale, spike’
through Middle English stile ‘writing tool’
Today it means
noun A sharp stick used for writing on clay tablets or other surfaces; a stylus; (by extension, obsolete) an instrument used to write with ink; a pen.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin stilus / style