stoop - What does it mean?

Verb

(en-verb)

To bend the upper part of the body forward and downward.

He stooped to tie his shoe-laces.

* 1900 , , The House Behind the Cedars , Chapter I,

Their walk had continued not more than ten minutes when they crossed a creek by a wooden bridge and came to a row of mean houses standing flush with the street. At the door of one, an old black woman had stooped to lift a large basket, piled high with laundered clothes.

* {{quote-news

|year=2010 |date=December 28 |author=Kevin Darlin |title=West Brom 1 - 3 Blackburn |work=BBC citation |page= |passage=Pedersen took a short corner and El-Hadji Diouf was given time to send in a cross for Mame Diouf to stoop and head home from close range. }}

To lower oneself; to demean or do something below one's status, standards, or morals.

Can you believe that a salesman would stoop so low as to hide his customers' car keys until they agreed to the purchase?

Of a bird of prey: to swoop down on its prey.

* 1882 [1875], Thomas Bewick, James Reiveley, William Harvey, The Parlour Menagerie , 4th ed., p. 63:

Presently the bird stooped and seized a salmon, and a violent struggle ensued.

To cause to incline downward; to slant.

to stoop a cask of liquor

To cause to submit; to prostrate.

* Chapman

Many of those whose states so tempt thine ears / Are stooped by death; and many left alive.

To yield; to submit; to bend, as by compulsion; to assume a position of humility or subjection.

* Dryden

Mighty in her ships stood Carthage long, / Yet stooped to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong.

* Addison

These are arts, my prince, / In which your Zama does not stoop to Rome.

To descend from rank or dignity; to condescend.

* Goldsmith

She stoops to conquer.

* Francis Bacon

Where men of great wealth stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly.

To degrade.

(Shakespeare)