stint

• IPA^(key): /stɪnt/
• Rhymes: -ɪnt

Old English styntan (“make blunt”), probably influenced in some senses by cognate Old Norse *stynta.

stint (plural stints)

1. A period of time spent doing or being something. A spell.

   He had a stint in jail.

   • 2012 May 13, Andrew Benson, “Williams's Pastor Maldonado takes landmark Spanish Grand Prix win”, in BBC Sport‎:

     That left Maldonado with a 6.2-second lead. Alonso closed in throughout their third stints, getting the gap down to 4.2secs before Maldonado stopped for the final time on lap 41.

2. limit; bound; restraint; extent
   • South

     God has wrote upon no created thing the utmost stint of his power.

3. Quantity or task assigned; proportion allotted.
   • Cowper

     His old stint — three thousand pounds a year.

stint (third-person singular simple present stints, present participle stinting, simple past and past participle stinted)

1. (archaic, intransitive) To stop (an action); cease, desist.
   • 1460-1500, The Towneley Playsː

     We maun have pain that never shall stint.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.iii:

     O do thy cruell wrath and spightfull wrong / At length allay, and stint thy stormy strife […]

   • (Can we date this quote?) Shakespeare

     And stint thou too, I pray thee.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Sir Walter Scott

     The damsel stinted in her song.

2. (obsolete, intransitive) To stop speaking or talking (of a subject).
   • Late 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Franklin's Tale’, Canterbury Tales:

     Now wol I stynten of this Arveragus, / And speken I wole of Dorigen his wyf

3. (intransitive) To be sparing or mean.

   The next party you throw, don't stint on the beer.

4. (transitive) To restrain within certain limits; to bound; to restrict to a scant allowance.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Woodward

     I shall not go about to extenuate the latitude of the curse upon the earth, or stint it only to the production of weeds.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Law

     She stints them in their meals.

5. To assign a certain task to (a person), upon the performance of which he/she is excused from further labour for that day or period; to stent.
6. To impregnate successfully; to get with foal; said of mares.
   • (Can we date this quote?) J. H. Walsh

     The majority of maiden mares will become stinted while at work.

Origin unknown.

stint (plural stints)

1. Any of several very small wading birds in the genus Calidris. Types of sandpiper, such as the dunlin or the sanderling.

stint (plural stints)

1. Misspelling of stent (medical device).

• 'tisn't, it'sn't, tints