Stoop

How to spell stoop

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce stoop

What does stoop mean?

1. verbTo bend the head and shoulders forward and downward.
2. nounA habitually bent or rounded posture of the head and shoulders.
3. nounA small porch or set of steps at the entrance to a house.

Stoop in a sentence

• verb

  He had to stoop to get through the low doorway.

• noun

  Years at the desk gave him a noticeable stoop.

• noun

  The neighbours sat out on the front stoop all evening.

• verb

  She would stoop to pick the coins up off the floor.

• noun

  The physiotherapist worked to correct her forward stoop.

• noun

  She left the parcel on the stoop by the front door.

Where does stoop come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes from the Old English verb stupian, which meant 'to bend forward' or 'to bow the body downward'. It traces back to a Germanic root shared with words for bending and leaning, and it has kept that core physical sense for well over a thousand years. The familiar idea of 'stooping to' something low or dishonourable grew out of the literal bending, picturing a person lowering themselves morally as well as physically. The American sense of a small porch or set of front steps comes from a different but related source: the Dutch word stoep, meaning a raised platform or doorstep, carried to North America by Dutch settlers in the New York area. The spelling trap is the double o, which sounds the same as the rare word 'stoup' (a basin for holy water), so the everyday spelling keeps the plain -oop ending.

How the word is built

• stoop (from Old English stupian: to bend down)