stein
noun/staɪn/
Etymology From a regional use of German Stein (“stone”). Probably a clipping of Steingut (“stoneware”) or Steinkrug (“stone pitcher”). Compare Old English stǣna (“stone jug, a pot of stone or earth”). Doublet of stone. More at stean.
1
A beer mug, usually made of ceramic or glass.
- So this was my future home, I thought! Certainly it made a brave picture. I had seen similar ones fired-in on many a Heidelberg stein—coloring and all. Backed by towering hills,[…]a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, “Zollenstein”, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 40:
- A gnome-size German civilian with a red von Hindenburg mustache is dispensing steins of what looks to be mostly head.1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, 1st US edition, New York: Viking Press, →ISBN, part 3: In the Zone, page 305:
1 more example
- […] those 50 grams of resin-soaked dope, which had been so potent that on the second day it had given him an anxiety attack so paralyzing that he had gone to the bathroom in a Tufts University commemorative ceramic stein to avoid leaving his bedroom,[…]1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, pages 24–25:
- Derived terms
- steinful, steinholding, steinie
- Related terms
- Stein, steinstrasse, beer glass, tankard