English

Etymology

From or cognate with Middle Low German stūke.

Pronunciation

• /stʊk/

Noun

1. a pile or bundle, especially of straw

   • 1958: The wheat, tawny with ripeness, had been cut and stood in tented stooks about the fields, while a few ghostly poppies lingered at the edge of the path. — Iris Murdoch, The Bell

Verb

1. to make stooks

A stook, also referred to as a shock is a circular or rounded arrangement of swathes of cut grain stalks placed on the ground in a field. Typically sheaves of grains such as wheat, barley and oats may be 'stooked' so they are ready for threshing. In North America, a stook also refers to a stack of six bales of hay or straw (the small square bales, 70-90 pounds each, that can picked up by a person), stacked in the field. The bales are stacked and deposited by a "stooking machine" that is dragged, sled-like, behind the baler. The bales are stacked on the diagonal, to minimize acquiring moisture from the ground before being picked up.

The purpose of these practices is to protect unthreshed grain, hay or straw from moisture until it can be picked up and brought into long-term storage.

External links

• Photograph of stooking