Definition of "sty" [sty]

• An enclosure for swine. (noun)
• A filthy place. (noun)
• To shut up in or live in a sty. (verb-transitive)
• Inflammation of one or more sebaceous glands of an eyelid. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "He kept a pig, and was wont to boast that he possessed the highest pigsty and the lowest barn in the country, because the sty was a structure of his own erection, in the old brick tower, above the level of the surrounding ground; while his straw was stored in an excavation (still existing) several feet below."
• "Does the writer delicately hesitate to call a sty a sty, or has the internment of the food-hog really begun?"
• "That bit of our heritage was a brazen statement about the promise, and the pig sty, that is democracy - that only a completely open society, tolerant of all views, would thrive."