stein

plural steins

1. A beer mug, usually made of ceramic or glass.

   A gnome-size German civilian with a red von Hindenburg mustache is dispensing steins of what looks to be mostly head.

   1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, 1st US edition, New York: Viking Press, →ISBN, part 3: In the Zone, page 305

   2 more examples

   So this was my future home, I thought! Certainly it made a brave picture. I had seen similar ones fired-in on many a Heidelberg stein—coloring and all. Backed by towering hills,[…]a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

   1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, “Zollenstein”, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 40

   […] those 50 grams of resin-soaked dope, which had been so potent that on the second day it had given him an anxiety attack so paralyzing that he had gone to the bathroom in a Tufts University commemorative ceramic stein to avoid leaving his bedroom,[…]

   1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, pages 24–25

plural Steins

1. countableuncountableA surname originating as a patronymic from a Scots diminutive of Stephen.
2. countableuncountableA surname from German Stein.

   Elisheva Baskin and Michael Stein are to be married Sunday evening at the Palisadium, an event space in Cliffside Park, N.J. Rabbi Yaacov Love is to officiate.

   2013 July 26, “Elisheva Baskin and Michael Stein”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 29 Jul 2013

   1 more example

   “Sunlight tends to make it a little better,” Stein said. “When people are more covered up in clothing like they are in the fall and the winter, some people’s psoriasis gets worse.”

   2025 February 10, Monica Haider, “Dermatologists share how to treat dry skin”, in CNN, archived from the original on 12 Mar 2025

3. countableuncountableA male given name from Norwegian.
4. A place in Switzerland:
   1. countableuncountableA municipality in Rheinfelden district, Aargau canton, Switzerland, across the Rhine from Bad Säckingen in Germany.
   2. countableuncountableA municipality in Appenzell Ausserrhoden canton, Switzerland.
   3. countableuncountableA settlement in Meiringen municipality, Bern canton, Switzerland.
   4. countableuncountableA village and former municipality, now in Nesslau municipality, St. Gallen canton, Switzerland.