Definition
In old Scots law, a blow or stroke delivered with a sting (a pointed stick or staff) or baton. The term describes a specific category of physical assault recognized in the early municipal law of Scotland, distinguished by the instrument used to inflict the blow. It corresponds to the Latin *fustigatio*, meaning a beating with a staff or cudgel.
Why It Matters in Research
STINGISDINT is a term of narrow historical specificity. It appears in the context of the *Leges Burgorum* (Laws of the Burghs), the body of early Scots municipal law governing chartered towns, and in Skene's *De Verborum Significatione*, the principal early modern glossary of Scots legal terms. Researchers encountering this word in archival burgh records, plea rolls, or early Scots legal manuscripts should treat it as a term of art denoting an assault by staff or baton — not a generic reference to any blow.
The practical significance lies in historical tariff-based penalty systems. Early Scots and other medieval legal traditions commonly assigned different compensations, fines, or punishments based on the nature of the wound or blow — whether by hand, by blunt instrument, by edged weapon, or by pointed staff. STINGISDINT would have occupied a distinct place in such a taxonomy, likely carrying its own fixed penalty or assythment (compensation) under burgh law. A researcher reading early Scots court or burgh records who fails to recognize this term may misidentify the nature of the alleged offense or misread the severity assigned to it.
The Latin equivalent *fustigatio* may appear in parallel Latin versions of the same instruments or in scholarly commentary, and cross-referencing between the Scots vernacular term and its Latin counterpart is essential when working with bilingual or translated sources from this period.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the sole surviving entry in the Law Mind historical dictionary corpus. Burrill's treatment is brief but accurate in its essentials: it identifies the term as Old Scots, supplies the Latin equivalent (*fustigatio*), defines it as a dint or stroke with a sting or baton, and directs the reader to two primary sources — *Leges Burgorum*, chapter *sciendum est*, section 9, and Skene's *De Verborum Significatione*.
No other dictionary in the Law Mind corpus — including Black's, Bouvier's, or Tomlin's — appears to carry an entry for this term, which reflects its extreme jurisdictional and temporal specificity. The term does not appear to have migrated into English common law, American law, or later Scots law as a live term of art. Its presence in Burrill is consistent with Burrill's broader practice of preserving highly localized feudal and municipal terms from Scots, Welsh, and Anglo-Norman sources that other American dictionaries of the nineteenth century largely omitted.
Researchers should note that Skene's *De Verborum Significatione* (first published 1597) remains the authoritative early modern source for Old Scots legal vocabulary of this type, and consultation of Skene directly is advisable for any serious archival work involving this term.
Jurisdictional Note
STINGISDINT is exclusively a term of Old Scots burgh law. It has no counterpart in English common law and no recorded usage in any other common law or civil law jurisdiction. It should be treated as a dead term with no modern legal application.