Dictionary

stein en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /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.

Meanings

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:
   • […] 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:
   • 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:

Forms

Deriveds

steinholding · steinful · steinie

Relateds

tankard · Stein · steinstrasse · beer glass

Translations (23)

ro halbă (a beer mug) · de Maß (a beer mug) · fi oluttuoppi (a beer mug) · it boccale (a beer mug) · de Seidel (a beer mug) · izh tooppi (a beer mug) · de Bierglas (a beer mug) · nb seidel (a beer mug) · sv stop (a beer mug) · fr chope (a beer mug) · nb ølkrus (a beer mug) · nl bierpul (a beer mug) · ca boc (a beer mug) · vo biraköp (a beer mug) · de Bierkrug (a beer mug) · de Maßkrug (a beer mug) · uk ку́холь (a beer mug) · bg керамична халба (a beer mug) · pl kufel (a beer mug) · tr bira kupası (a beer mug) · de Bierseidel (a beer mug) · de Humpen (a beer mug) · de Steinkrug (a beer mug)