Etymology From Middle English stellen, from Old English stellan (“to give a place to, set, place”), from Proto-West Germanic *stalljan (“to put, position”), from Proto-Indo-European *stel- (“to place, put, post, stand”). Cognate with Dutch stellen (“to set, put”), dated Low German stellen (“to put, place, fix”), German stellen (“to set, place, provide”), Old English steall (“position, place”). More at stall.
1
Scotland, UK, Dialectal To place in position; set up, fix, plant; prop, mount.
How he escaped a broken neck in that dreadful place no human being will ever ken. The sweat, he has told me, stood in cold drops upon his forehead; he scarcely was aware of the saddle in which he sat, and his eyes were stelled in his head so that he saw nothing but the sky ayont him.1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:
To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come, To find a face where all distress is stelled.1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC, lines 1443–44:
Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd Thy beauty's form in table of my heart […]1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 24”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:
stell
noun
Etymology Alteration of stall, after the verb to stell.
Paint Scotland greetin owre her thrissle; Her mutchkin stowp as toom's a whissle; An' damn'd excisemen in a bussle, Seizin a stell, Triumphant crushin't like a mussel, Or limpet shell!1786, Robert Burns, The Author's Earnest Cry And Prayer:
The English stell we could disdain, Secure in valour's station; But English gold has been our bane— Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!1791, Robert Burns, Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation: