stockishadj.

1600 W. Shakespeare Merchant of Venice v. i. 81 Naught so stockish hard and full of rage, but musique for the time doth change his nature. View more context for this quotation

1612 T. Taylor Αρχὴν Ἁπάντων: Comm. Epist. Paul to Titus i. 7 A stockish senselessnesse, or a sufferance of any evill, without any great sense of it.

1641 R. Greville Disc. Nature Episcopacie i. ix. 53 The issue will be slavish, grosse superstition, and stockish Idolatry.

1816 G. Colman Eccentricities Edinb. 19 Touch'd by vivifick flame, the stockish dirt Fermented, and became no more inert.

1842 R. W. Emerson Lect. Transcendentalist in Wks. (1906) II. 285 These persons are not by nature melancholy,..they are not stockish or brute.

1842 J. Foster Let. 1 Oct. in Life & Corr. J. Foster (1846) II. 347 The stockish stupidity of those Chartists.

1881 R. L. Stevenson Apol. Idlers in Virginibus Puerisque 124 Many..come out of the study with an..owl-like demeanour, and prove dry, stockish, and dyspeptic in all the better and brighter parts of life.

1913 N. Munro New Road xviii A stockish little man dressed in the Highland habit.

1846 R. Browning Soul's Trag. in Bells & Pomegranates No. VIII ii I understand only the dull mule's way of standing stockishly.

1914 H. Newbolt Aladore xxvi Then he stood before her stockishly, like a thing of wood.

1837 R. Browning Strafford iii. iii. 77 O stockishness! Wear such a ruff, and never call to mind St. John's head in a charger?