Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Stilus

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

STIL'US or STYL'US (γραφίς). An instrument (Stilus/1.1) made of iron or bone (Isidor. Orig. vi. 9.), pointed at one end, but having a broad flat blade at the other (Sympos. Aenigm. 1.), and employed for writing upon tablets covered with a thin coat of wax (Plaut. Bacch. iv. 3. 79. and 91.). The point served for tracing the letters, and the flat end for making corrections by smoothing over the surface of the wax so as to obliterate the writing, whence the expression vertere stilum (Hor. Sat. i. 10. 72.) means to erase or correct the composition. Scholars generally trace the word to the Greek one, στῦλος, a pillar; but as the best Latin authorities spell it with an i instead of y, and the Latin penult is short, while the Greek one is long, it is more probable that it comes from στέλεχος, a stalk, which is also one of the meanings of the Latin stilus (Columell. xi. 3. 46. v. 10. 2.).

2. Stilus caecus; the spike of a caltrop, which was placed upon the ground, so that it would be concealed by herbage, while it effectually disabled cavalry from advancing. (Hirt. B. Afr. 31. Sil. Ital. x. 414.) The example (Stilus/2.1) is from an original.

3. The pin or index of a sundial (Mart. Capell. vi. 194.); otherwise called GNOMON, under which an example is given.

4. A bronze needle, or sharp-pointed rod, employed for destroying maggots and insects in fruit trees. Pallad. iv. 10. 20.

5. A wooden probe employed in the kitchen garden for inoculating the seed of one plant into the pithy stalk of a different species. Columell. xi. 3. 53.

• 
  Stilus/1.1
• 
  Stilus/2.1