Stove up

Posted by Smokey Stover on September 24, 2008 at 03:23

In Reply to: Stove up posted by ESC on September 24, 2008 at 00:04:

: : Where does the phrase "stove up", meaning injured, originate? I live in Tennessee and it's pretty common in the older folks here.

: They said that in West Virginia too.

: It is the "verb past participle of stave," it says in the "Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English" by Michael B. Montgomery and Joseph S. Hall (University of Tennessee Press, 2004). And stove up means bruised up, crippled to a degree that it is difficult to get around, sore or stiff in the joints, worn out. But it doesn't say why stave/stove.

There is a related discussion in the Archive; see:

www.phrases.org.uk bulletin_board 49 messages 694.html

The discussion there relates more to stove in, but both come from the verb "stave."
SS