stover

From Anglo-Norman estovers (“necessities”) via Middle English estover (“allowance”), ultimately from Latin est opus (“there is need”). Compare estover.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈstəʊ.və/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈstoʊ.vɚ/

stover (countable and uncountable, plural stovers)

1. Fodder for cattle, especially straw or coarse hay.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
     And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep; […]

2. Stalks and leaves, not including grain, of certain forages

   Coordinate terms: straw, shaw, trash

   • 2012 August 24, George Monbiot, Guardian Weekly, page 20:

     Even second-generation biofuels, made from crop wastes or wood, are an environmental disaster, either extending the cultivated area or removing the straw and stovers which protect the soil from erosion and keep carbon and nutrients in the ground.

• “stover”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

• orvets, rovest, strove, troves, voters