"I have been stuck up, trampled in the mud."
1869. J. Townend, `Reminiscences of Australia," p. 140:
"Five or six bushrangers took up a position about a mile from town, and (to use a colonial phrase) `stuck up" every person that pa.s.sed."
1869. Mrs. W. M. Howell, `The Diggings and the Bush,"
p. 93:
"The escort has been `stuck up," and the robbers have taken notes to the value of L700, and two thousand ounces of gold."
1885. H. Finch-Hatton, `Advance Australia," p. 253:
"We had a revolver apiece in case of being `stuck up" on the road."
1888. Rolf Boldrewood, `Robbery under Arms," p. 168:
"We could make more money in one night by `sticking up" a coach or a bank than in any other way in a year ... Any one who has been stuck up himself knows that there"s not much chance of doing much in the resisting line." [The operation is then explained fully.]
1890. Lyth, `Golden South," c.viii. p. 68:
"Accounts of bushrangers `sticking up" stations, travellers, and banks were very frequent."
1893. `Sydney Morning Herald," Aug. 26, p. 4. col. 6:
"The game of sticking up hotels used to be in the old days a popular one, and from the necessary openness of the premises the practice was easy to carry out."
(3) Humorously applied to a collector or a beggar. In `Twenty- five Years of St. Andrews" (vol. ii. p. 87), A. K. H. B.
tells a story of a church dignitary, who was always collecting money for church building. When a ghost appeared at Glamis Castle, addressing the ghost, the clergyman began--that "he was most anxious to raise money for a church he was erecting; that he had a bad cold and could not well get out of bed; but that his collecting-book was on the dressing-table, and he would be `extremely obliged" for a subscription." An Australian would have said he "stuck up" the ghost for a subscription.
1890. E. W. Hornung, `A Bride from the Bush," p. 297:
"You never get stuck up for coppers in the streets of the towns."
(4) Bring a kangaroo to bay.
1884. Rolf Boldrewood, `Melbourne Memories," c. iii. p. 24:
"We knew that she had `stuck up" or brought to bay a large forester."
1888. D. Macdonald, `Gum Boughs," p. 15:
"The fiercest fighter I ever saw `stuck up" against a red gum-tree."
(5) Simply to stop.
1863. S. Butler, `First Year in Canterbury Settlement," p. 68:
"This [waterfall] `stuck us up," as they say here concerning any difficulty."
1890. `The Argus," June 7, p. 4, col. 2:
"We are stuck up for an hour or more, and can get a good feed over there."
(6) To pose, to puzzle.
1896. Modern:
"I was stuck up for an answer."
"That last riddle stuck him up."
1897. `The Australasian," Jan. 2, p. 33, col. 1:
"The professor seems to have stuck up any number of candidates with the demand that they should `construct one simple sentence out of all the following.""
Sticker-up, n. sc. a bushranger.
1879. W. J. Barry, `Up and Down," p. 197:
"They had only just been liberated from gaol, and were the stickers-up, or highwaymen mentioned."
Sticker-up/2, n. a term of early bush cookery, the method, explained in first quotation, being borrowed from the aborigines.
1830. `Hobart Town Almanack," p. 112:
"Which he cooked in the mode called in colonial phrase a sticker up. A straight twig being cut as a spit, the slices were strung upon it, and laid across two forked sticks leaning towards the fire."
1852. Mrs. Meredith, `My Home in Tasmania," vol. i. p. 55:
"Here I was first initiated into the bush art of `sticker-up"
cookery ... the orthodox material here is of course kangaroo, a piece of which is divided nicely into cutlets two or three inches broad and a third of an inch thick. The next requisite is a straight clean stick, about four feet long, sharpened at both ends. On the narrow part of this, for the s.p.a.ce of a foot or more, the cutlets are spitted at intervals, and on the end is placed a piece of delicately rosy fat bacon. The strong end of the stick-spit is now stuck fast and erect in the ground, close by the fire, to leeward; care being taken that it does not burn." "... to men that are hungry, stuck-up kangaroo and bacon are very good eating." ... "our `sticker-up"
consisted only of ham."
1862. G. T. Lloyd, `Thirty-three Years in Tasmania and Victoria," p. 103:
"Pounds of rosy steaks ... skilfully rigged after the usual approved fashion (termed in Bush parlance a sticker-up"), before the brilliant wood fire, soon sent forth odours most grateful to the hungered way-worn Bushmen."
Stilt, n. English bird-name. In New Zealand, the species are--
The Black Stilt-- Himantopus novae-zelandiae, Gould; Maori name, Kaki.
Pied S., or Whiteheaded S.-- H. leucocephalus, Gould; Maori name, Tutumata.
White-necked S.-- H. albicollis, Buller.
H. leucocephalus (the White-headed Stilt) is also present in Australia, and the world-wide species, H. pectoralis, Du Bus. (the Banded Stilt), is found through all Australasia.
Stingareeing, n. the sport of catching Stingrays, or Stingarees.