Stool
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(1): ( v. i.) To ramfy; to tiller, as grain; to shoot out suckers.
(2): ( n.) A bench or form for resting the feet or the knees; a footstool; as, a kneeling stool.
(3): ( n.) A bishop's seat or see; a bishop-stool.
(4): ( n.) Material, such as oyster shells, spread on the sea bottom for oyster spat to adhere to.
(5): ( n.) A plant from which layers are propagated by bending its branches into the soil.
(6): ( n.) A small channel on the side of a vessel, for the dead-eyes of the backstays.
(7): ( n.) A single seat with three or four legs and without a back, made in various forms for various uses.
(8): ( n.) A seat used in evacuating the bowels; hence, an evacuation; a discharge from the bowels.
(9): ( n.) A stool pigeon, or decoy bird.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible [2]
Stool . ‘In older English (including AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ) “stool” was used freely for any kind of seat’ ( DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] iv. 621); similarly the Heb. kissç ’ includes both chairs and stools, see House, § 8 . In the difficult passage Exodus 1:16 the word rendered ‘stools’ in the sense of birth-stools ( sella parturientis ) must be pointed to read ‘stones’ ( ’abnáyim for ’obnáyim , both dual number), the reference being to the two stones or bricks on which a woman sat during her accouchement. This widely spread custom has been conclusively shown to have existed in ancient Egypt by Spiegelberg ( Ægypt. Randglossen , 19 25), from the realistic representation preserved in an early hieroglyphic sign for birth, confirmed by literary references.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
King James Dictionary [3]
STOOL, n. G., a stool, a stock, a pew, a chair, the see of a bishop. This coincides with stall and still. A stool is that which is set, or a seat.
1. A seat without a back a little form consisting of a board with three or four legs, intended as a set for one person. 2. The seat used in evacuating the contents of the bowels hence, an evacuation a discharge from the bowels. 3. L. A sucker a shoot from the bottom of the stem or the root of a plant.
Stool of repentance, in Scotland, an elevated seat in the church, on which persons sit as a punishment for fornication and adultery.
STOOL, In agriculture, to ramify to tiller, as grain to shoot out suckers.
Holman Bible Dictionary [4]
2 Kings 4:10 Exodus 1:16 Psalm 99:5 Psalm 2:3
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia [5]
stōōl ( אבנים , 'obhnayim ): It is not clear what the character and purpose of this stool were Septuagint has no reference to it). It seems to have been a chair of a peculiar sort upon which a woman reclined in parturition ( Exodus 1:16 ). The Hebrew word is in the dual number and primarily means "two stones." The only other place where it occurs is Jeremiah 18:3 , where it is rendered "wheels" Septuagint ἐπὶ τῶν λίθων , epı́ tṓn lı́thōn , "on the stones"). In 2 Kings 4:10 , the word translated in the King James Version as "stool" (כּסּא , kiṣṣē' ) is in the Revised Version (British and American) more correctly translated "seat." See also Birth-Stool; Seat .
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [6]
in an ecclesiastical sense, is a seat for acolytes, servers, and attendant clerks in the services of the Church.
