''stirrup'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''stirrup'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260320113731-00-⌔

stirrup - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

stirrup (plural stirrups)

• (equestrianism) A ring or hoop suspended by a rope or strap from the saddle, for a horseman’s foot while mounting or riding.
  • ✤ With what different feelings did he now put foot in stirrup to the last time when he sprung to horse?¹
• (by extension) Any piece shaped like the stirrup of a saddle, used as a support, clamp, etc.
  • ✤ Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. […] A silver snaffle on a heavy leather watch guard which connected the pockets of his corduroy waistcoat, together with a huge gold stirrup in his Ascot tie, sufficiently proclaimed his tastes.²
  • (climbing) A portable, flexible ladder -like device used in climbing.
    • ✤ Synonyms: aider, étrier
• (anatomy) A stapes.
• (nautical) A rope secured to a yard, with a thimble in its lower end for supporting a footrope.
  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:stirrup.
• (construction) A bent rebar wrapped around the main rebars to reinforce against shear stress.

Adjective

stirrup (not comparable)

• Referring to women’s pants/trousers: being of a form, commonly worn by women, that includes a strap beneath the arch of the foot.

Etymology

From Middle English stirop, stirope, from Old English stiġrāp (“stirrup”), a compound of stiġe (“ascent, descent, a going up or down”; related to stīġan (“to climb”)) and rāp (“rope”), equivalent to sty +‎ rope.

Cognate with Dutch stegereep, stegelreep (“stirrup”), Old Saxon stigerēp (“stirrup”), Middle High German stereip, stegreif (“stirrup”; > German Stegreif (“improvisation”)), Icelandic stigreip (“stirrup”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈstɪ.ɹəp/, (obsolete)/ˈstʌ.ɹəp/³
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (General American) IPA: /ˈstɝ.əp/, /ˈstɪɹ.əp/
• Rhymes: -ɪɹəp, -ɜːɹəp

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

1. 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, pages 36–37: ↩

2. 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC: ↩

3. Ross, Alan S. C. (1954), “Linguistic Class Indicators in Present-Day English”, in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen ‎${}^{[1]}$, volume 55, number 1, Helsinki: Modern Language Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 38. ↩

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