sting

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“
Well, the sting was all gone by that time, fortunately.

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Definitions (53)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (13)

  1. transitive verb To pierce or wound painfully with or as if with a sharp-pointed structure or organ, as that of certain insects.
  2. transitive verb To cause to feel a sharp, smarting pain by or as if by pricking with a sharp point: smoke stinging our eyes.
  3. transitive verb To cause to suffer keenly in the mind or feelings: Those harsh words stung me bitterly.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (29)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (9)

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Examples (50)

  • Police hope this sting will be a game changer for young women often caught up in drugs, or joblessness.
  • Of all the stations they observed, the seven involved in the sting were the only ones that were paying out their customers in cash. —  Gambling News
  • Similar prosecutions of a number of young people in Toronto have been falling apart as more and more evidence emerges that they were set up by police in a classic "sting" - type entrapment operation. —  GlobalResearch.ca
  • The action of the sting, says Paley, affords an example of the union of chemistry and mechanism; of chemistry in respect to the venom_, which can produce such powerful effects; of mechanism as the sting is a compound instrument. —  Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee A Bee Keeper's Manual
  • It must sting, remember,--sting well. —  The Crofton Boys
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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

bitter ·  pang ·  hiss ·  chill ·  icy ·  fiery ·  cold ·  bitterness ·  shock ·  thrill ·  burn ·  nasty

Used in the same contextWord Family

sting:   stinging ·  stings ·  stung
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (4)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English stingen, from Old English stingan; see stegh- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. from Middle English stingen (preterit stang, stong, stonge, past participle stungen, stongen, y-stongen, y-stonge), from Anglo-Saxon stingan (preterit stang, past participle stungen) = Icelandic stinga = Swedish stinga = Danish stinge; cf. Gothic (Moesogothic) us-stiggan, push, push out, = L. *stinguere, quench: see stick, v.
  2. = Icelandic stingi, a pin, a stitch in the side, = Swedish sting, a sting (in sense 4), = Danish sting, stitch; from the verb.
  3. Also steing; a variant of stang.
 

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/stɪŋ/
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