What does it mean to be stove up? This phrase for sore or stiff has nothing to do with a stovetop; stove is actually the past tense of stave. To stave in a wooden boat is to smash a hole in its side, and thus, to be stove up is to be incapacitated or damaged. These words are related to the noun stave, the term for one of those flat pieces of wood in a barrel. Similarly, to stave off hunger is to metaphorically beat it back, as if with a stick. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Stove Up”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Teresa calling from Dallas, Texas.
Hi, Teresa. Welcome to the program.
Hi.
Hi.
Okay, so I recently had some family visiting and a saying came up that I had never heard of
And I immediately thought to call you guys.
So we were driving in the car for a while and after we stopped to get out,
When my mom was climbing out of the car, she said she was stiff since she had been sitting so long.
And then she added that my grandmother would say that she would stove up.
So I looked at her like she had two heads.
I was like, stove up? What is that?
And what did she say?
Well, I guess that you’re sore or you’re stiff.
Yeah, I’ve never heard it before.
I was wondering where it came from or what it means, really.
Stove up. So she got out of the car.
She was all stiff, didn’t feel quite right.
Had to walk it off.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
She said, I’m all stove up.
Maybe sore and got to get the circulation going, right?
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
I know that one.
Yeah.
Did your family use it growing up?
Yeah.
But it’s definitely connected to the more rural and countryside of my family, the older folks
Even on that side.
So the older, more rural, more countryside of my father’s family would use it.
Yeah.
Well, you do hear it more in the South, in the South Midlands, where your family came
From.
But I can tell you that, Teresa, it has nothing to do with the kind of stove you cook on.
Yeah?
Yeah, that’s probably what’s confusing you, right?
Well, I thought maybe like a stovepipe or something.
Yeah, yeah.
I don’t know.
Yeah, yeah, that’s what I thought when I first encountered this term.
But it turns out that stove is the past tense of stave.
And stave goes all the way back to an old word for stick.
And those bent flat pieces of wood in a barrel are called barrel staves.
Have you heard that term?
Oh, right.
Barrel staves.
And so if you stave in a barrel, it means that you break into it or you stave in a boat.
You crash into the hull and open it up.
And then stove up eventually came to mean just sort of incapacitated, damaged, that kind of thing.
And you do see it mostly in the South.
You know, the doctor told me after this operation, I’d be all stove up for a while.
That kind of thing.
So banged up and sore, not quite yourself.
Yeah.
Okay.
That’s great.
And this has got some years on it, too, right?
Oh, lots.
This isn’t something new.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the stave goes way, way back.
It’s a relative of staph.
And, like, if you’re staving off hunger, you’ve heard that expression, Teresa?
Yeah.
Eat this to stave off your hunger.
The idea there is beating it off with a stick, literally.
Does that make sense now?
Yeah.
Yay.
But my question is, why did it go from being stove in to being stiff?
Wouldn’t it have something to do with the staves themselves being stiff?
Well, I don’t know that it’s stiffness so much as just general.
Malaise.
Yeah, incapacitation due to overwork or injury, that kind of thing.
She just wasn’t right, right?
Your mother just wasn’t right.
I love the expression.
I’m all stove up.
Yeah, that’s great.
Yeah.
All right, Teresa.
Thanks for calling.
All right.
Thank you.
Take care of yourself.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
All right.
Bye.
877-929-9673, words@waywordradio.org.
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Your discussion of the phrase, ‘stove up’, made me wonder whether it sheds some light on a word I first encountered when reading Richard Henry Dana’s ‘Two Years Before the Mast’ many years ago. In the book, Dana talks about his time spent in the California of the 1830’s tanning hides in preparation for shipment to Eastern markets. When his vessel returns to pick up its cargo, Dana describes the process of loading the tanned hides into the ship’s hold by means of ‘steeving’. Basically, when the hold appeared to be full, the crew would compress the load using a long lever made from one of the spars of the ship. More hides could then be forced into the space created, maximizing the salable cargo the ship could carry. Repeated over and over again, the crew could create a ship that was virtually bursting with skins.
My thought when I first read this was that ‘steeve’ must be the root of the word, ‘stevedore’. but having heard your radio bit, I wonder if there is a connection to ‘stave’ because of the long poles used to steeve. I’m probably wrong; I usually am when guessing at etymologies, but I’d appreciate your insight.