Stint Meaning
/stɪnt/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo stop (an action); cease, desist.
verbTo stop speaking or talking (of a subject).
Sentence Examples
I met her during my stint there.
Tom turned his life around after a stint in rehab.
CEFR Practice Quiz
After a brief ____ as a waiter, he decided to pursue a career in cooking.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
After a short ____ in the military, he returned to his hometown to take over his father's bakery.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English stinten, from Old English styntan (“to make blunt”) and *stintan (attested in āstintan (“to make dull, stint, assuage”)), from Proto-West Germanic *stuntijan, from Proto-Germanic *stuntijaną and Proto-Germanic *stintaną (“to make short”), probably influenced in some senses by cognate Old Norse *stynta, stytta (“to make short, shorten”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"We mon haue payne that neuer shall stynt"
— 15th c., “[The Creation]”, in Wakefield Mystery Plays; Re-edited in George England, Alfred W. Pollard, editors, The Towneley Plays (Early English Text Society Extra Series; LXXI), London: […] Oxford University Press, 1897, →OCLC, page 6, line 161:
"O do thy cruell wrath and spightfull wrong / At length allay, and stint thy stormy strife […]"
— 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
"And stint thou too, I pray thee."
— c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:
"The damsel stinted in her song."
— 1818 July 25, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Company, →OCLC:
"I shall not in the least go about to extenuate the Latitude of it: or to stint it only to the Produćtion of Weeds, of Thorns, Thisiles, and other the less useful Kinds of Plants"
— 1695, John Woodward, An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth and Terrestrial Bodies:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
After a brief ____ as a waiter, he decided to pursue a career in cooking.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
After a short ____ in the military, he returned to his hometown to take over his father's bakery.