stool

UK: /ˈstuːl/ US: /stul/ ,(sto̅o̅l)

WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2025

stool /stul/   n. [countable]

1. Furniture a simple armless and usually backless seat on legs:
   sat on stools at the counter.
2. Furniture a short, low support on which to step, kneel, or rest the feet while sitting:
   He propped his feet on the stool.
3. Physiology the fecal matter excreted during a bowel movement.
4. a toilet seat.
5. Religion a stool pigeon.

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025

stool (sto̅o̅l),  n. 

1. Furniture a single seat on legs or a pedestal and without arms or a back.
2. Furniture a short, low support on which to stand, step, kneel, or rest the feet while sitting.
3. Botany [Hort.] the stump, base, or root of a plant from which propagative organs are produced, as shoots for layering.
4. Botany the base of a plant that annually produces new stems or shoots.
5. Botany a cluster of shoots or stems springing up from such a base or from any root, or a single shoot or layer.
6. a bird fastened to a pole or perch and used as a decoy.
7. an artificial duck or other bird, usually made from wood, used as a decoy by hunters.
8. a privy.
9. Physiology the fecal matter evacuated at each movement of the bowels.
10. Building the sill of a window. See diag. under double-hung. 
11. Religion a bishop's seat considered as symbolic of his authority;
    see.
12. Anthropology, Government, Religion the sacred chair of certain African chiefs, symbolic of their kingship.
13. fall between two stools, to fail, through hesitation or indecision, to select either of two alternatives.

v.i. 

14. Botany to put forth shoots from the base or root, as a plant;
    form a stool.
15. Slang Terms to turn informer;
    serve as a stool pigeon.

• Indo-European root of stand) + *-l- suffix; akin to Old Church Slavonic stolù throne
• Gmc *stō- (
• bef. 900; Middle English; Old English stōl; cognate with German Stuhl, Old Norse stōll, Gothic stols chair; all

stool′like′, adj. 

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

stool / stuːl/ noun

1. a backless seat or footrest consisting of a small flat piece of wood, etc, resting on three or four legs, a pedestal, etc
2. a rootstock or base of a plant, usually a woody plant, from which shoots, etc, are produced
3. a cluster of shoots growing from such a base
4. a decoy used in hunting
5. waste matter evacuated from the bowels
6. a lavatory seat
7. (in W Africa, esp Ghana) a chief's throne
8. fall between two stools ⇒ to fail through vacillation between two alternatives
9. to be in an unsatisfactory situation through not belonging to either of two categories or groups

verb (intransitive)

1. (of a plant) to send up shoots from the base of the stem, rootstock, etc
2. to lure wildfowl with a decoy

Etymology: Old English stōl; related to Old Norse stōll, Gothic stōls, Old High German stuol chair, Greek stulos pillar