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stooks

Farming
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

“Stooks” are groups of cut grain sheaves stood upright in a field to dry before they are gathered and threshed.

Detailed Definition
A stook is a traditional arrangement of harvested cereal sheaves, usually set together so that the grain dries while remaining in the field. In Farming contexts, “stooks” commonly refers to several such groups. In Violet Jacob’s poem, the stooks mark the recently harvested fields and create gaps through which the speaker can glimpse the sea.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Bonnie Joann, Violet Jacob writes: “Gin ye keek whaur the stooks are dividin’ Ye’ll see it atween.” Here, “stooks” means upright groups of harvested sheaves. The speaker looks between them to see the sea, while the quiet, divided fields also help create the poem’s reflective and romantic atmosphere. Earlier, “We’ve stookit the hairst” means “we have arranged the harvest in stooks.”
Additional Notes
“Stooks” is a Scots and agricultural term; the standard English expression is often “sheaves set in shocks” or simply “bundled sheaves.” The related verb stook means to arrange harvested sheaves in this way. In the poem, stookit is the Scots past participle meaning “set in stooks.” A sheaf is a bundle of cut grain; a stook is an arrangement of several sheaves standing together. Stooking allows grain to dry before it is collected for threshing. The word is especially associated with traditional harvesting practices and may sound rural, regional, or old-fashioned in modern English.
Also Known As
Harvest Bundles Sheaves
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