staffslingt (stafsling)

[ME. staffeslynge, stafslinge; staff + sling1.] A weapon con sisting of a sling combined with a short staff. The staff was held with both hands and whirled around. The weapon seems to have thrown larger mi iles than the ordinary sling and with greater force. Distinguished from cord- sling . Also called fustibale , fust i balus . This geaunt at him stones caste Out of a fel staf-slinge. Chaucer, Sir Thopas, 1. 118. staff-stone (staf's ton), n. Same as baculite . staff-strikert (staf's tri". ker), n. A sturdy beggar; a tramp. Staff-sling, about the roth century. (From Viollet-lefrançais.") Duc's "Dict. du Mobilier Many became staf-strikers,..and wandered in parties of two, three, and four from village to village. R. Eden, quoted in Ribton-Turner's Va[grants and Vagrancy, p. 53. stage rope, and L. elaphus is the stag-beetle of the United States. The former is one of the largest of British beetles, distinguished by the enormous size of the horny and toothed mandibles in the male, and by the rather long elbowed antennæ, which end in a per foliated club, and are composed of ten joints, the first being very long. It is common in some localities in the neighborhood of London, and is often 2 inches long, of a black color. Other species are numerous in various parts of the world. See also cut under Platycerus. stag-bush (stagʼbush), n. The black haw, Vi burnum prunifolium.