stint

1 an unbroken period of time during which you do something; "there were stretches of boredom"; "he did a stretch in the federal penitentiary" [syn: stretch]

2 smallest American sandpiper [syn: least sandpiper, Erolia minutilla]

3 an individuals prescribed share of work; "her stint as a lifeguard exhausted her"

1 subsist on a meager allowance; "scratch and scrimp" [syn: scrimp, skimp]

2 supply sparingly and with restricted quantities; "sting with the allowance" [syn: skimp, scant]

English

Pronunciation

• /stɪnt/
• Rhymes: -ɪnt

Etymology 1

Old English styntan ‘make blunt’, probably influenced in some senses by cognate Old Norse *stynta.

Verb

1. In the context of "archaic|intransitive": To stop (an action); cease, desist.
2. In the context of "obsolete|intransitive": To stop speaking or talking (of a subject).
   • Late C14: Now wol I stynten of this Arveragus, / And speken I wole of Dorigen his wyf — Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Franklin's Tale’, Canterbury Tales
3. To be sparing or mean.

   The next party you throw, don't stint on the beer.

Noun

1. A period of time spent doing or being something. A spell.

   He had a stint in jail.

Etymology 2

Origin unknown.

Noun

1. Any of several very small wading birds in the genus Calidris. Types of sandpiper, such as the dunlin or the sanderling.
2. (Medical) Misspelling of stent.

Translations

• Spanish: correlimos

Anagrams

• tints

A stint is one of several very small waders in the paraphyletic "Calidris" assemblage - often separated in Erolia -, which in North America are known as peeps. They are scolopacid waders much similar in ecomorphology to their distant relatives, the charadriid plovers.

Some of these birds are difficult to identify because of the similarity between species, and various breeding, non-breeding, juvenile and moulting plumages. In addition, some plovers are also similarly patterned, especially in winter. With a few exceptions, stints usually have a fairly stereotypical color pattern, being brownish above and lighter - usually white - on much of the underside. The breast sides are almost always colored like the upperside, and there is usually a lighter supercilium above brownish cheeks. Notably, golden or orangey colors - common in plovers - are absent.

Systematics and taxonomy

The genus Calidris is not monophyletic in its traditional delimitations and should be restricted to the stout Red Knot and its allies. The genus Erolia was often used for the stints ever since it was proposed by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816. However, the type species of Erolia is the Curlew Sandpiper, which is not traditionally included among the stints.

No firm consensus has been reached on the Curlew Sandpiper's phylogenetic status (i.e., what its closest relatives are) and hence Erolia cannot be exactly delimited at present. This nonwithstanding, the stints together with a few slightly more distinct calidrids would indeed warrant separation as a distinct genus. The Sanderling, sometimes placed in Crocethia, is among these and it may be that this genus name would apply.

The species usually considered stints/peeps are:

• Semipalmated Sandpiper, Calidris pusilla or Erolia pusilla
• Western Sandpiper, Calidris mauri or Erolia mauri
• Red-necked Stint, Calidris ruficollis or Erolia ruficollis
• Little Stint, Calidris minuta or Erolia minuta
• Temminck's Stint, Calidris temminckii or Erolia temminckii
• Long-toed Stint, Calidris subminuta or Erolia subminuta
• Least Sandpiper, Calidris minutilla or Erolia minutilla
• White-rumped Sandpiper, Calidris fuscicollis or Erolia fuscicollis
• Baird's Sandpiper, Calidris bairdii or Erolia bairdii

See also

• Hybridisation in shorebirds

Footnotes

References

• (2004): A supertree approach to shorebird phylogeny. BMC Evol. Biol. 4: 28. PDF fulltext Supplementary Material

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