# the etymology of "stall" (fluid mechanics) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 11, 2017, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-etymology-of-stall-fluid-mechanics/804237 "2017-12-11T21:21:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2017, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-etymology-of-stall-fluid-mechanics/804237/1 "2017-12-11T21:21:15Z")
When/how/why did “stall” enter common usage as a word to describe flow separation and consequent loss of lift of an aerodynamic surface? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2017, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-etymology-of-stall-fluid-mechanics/804237/2 "2017-12-11T21:29:43Z")
The original definition is “enclosed space” – like, a stable, where an animal can’t move. It’s stuck. The later verb form you refer to seems to have emerged from this “stuck” idea. Something comes to standstill-- it stalls. That’s for land vehicles. When aircraft are invented, they “come to a standstill” as well – except that they happen to fall down after doing so, of course. The specialized definition referred to in the OP – the\* cause \*of that aircraft coming to a standstill – developed later still. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2017, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-etymology-of-stall-fluid-mechanics/804237/3 "2017-12-11T21:31:45Z")
I’m going to bet that “to stall” meant to fail to deliver or to resist what’s asked of a person, long before engines could stall. Then when engines failed to deliver, they called that “stalling”, and when heavier than air craft appeared, it was a short step to apply the same term to wings. Of course there are dictionaries out there, but I’m enjoying the speculative conversation. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2017, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-etymology-of-stall-fluid-mechanics/804237/4 "2017-12-11T21:37:46Z")
Good guessing, Napier, but not quite (I did look it up, in Wiktionary). You do bring up an interesting additional usage – to “cause someone to delay” – and this does derive quite directly from the older (not quite original) meaning “to become stuck.” In other words, you pointed out the addition of a _transitive_ meaning – specifically, a causative one. I’ll bet it’s a pretty old shift, since there’s the essentially identical word \*\*forestall \*\*for the sense you mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-etymology-of-stall-fluid-mechanics/804237/5 "2017-12-12T00:10:40Z")
The entries for “stall” in the OED are impressively long and varied. The earliest-attested use of “stall” in the aeronautical meaning is 1904 by Wilbur Wright himself: “He allowed the machine to turn up a little too much and it stalled it”. The noun form is attested 14 years later: “He went straight up three hundred feet and stalled and fell out of the stall right into the middle of the field”. For the meaning “to become stuck”, we have an example from 1460 “As still as a stone oure ship is stold”. For the meaning “stable”, the word goes back to 725 AD (“On stride he makede of hevene into the maidenes innethe, Other thenne into the stalle”). ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-etymology-of-stall-fluid-mechanics/804237/6 "2017-12-12T04:39:07Z")
Many terms in aviation have nautical origins (e.g. aeronautical). Perhaps “stall” was used to refer to a sailing ship in unfavorable wind conditions? ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-etymology-of-stall-fluid-mechanics/804237/7 "2017-12-12T15:23:38Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > Perhaps “stall” was used to refer to a sailing ship in unfavorable wind conditions? I don’t believe it was used this way until after it became an aeronautical term. Terms for a stalled sail include “luffing” and possibly “aback”. A vessel with its sails in that state can be said to be “in irons”. ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-etymology-of-stall-fluid-mechanics/804237/8 "2017-12-13T01:18:10Z")
I am interested in the answer too. Surge and stall terms are used for rotating equipment like fans, blowers and centrifugal compressors. Fans and Blowers have been around since the first Cupola furnaces and rotating equipment since the first water wheel. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-etymology-of-stall-fluid-mechanics/804237/9 "2017-12-13T01:51:51Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > I’m going to bet that “to stall” meant to fail to deliver or to resist what’s asked of a person, long before engines could stall. Then when engines failed to deliver, they called that “stalling”, and when heavier than air craft appeared, it was a short step to apply the same term to wings. In common usage, as applied to a vehicle, “stall” is generally a verb, meaning that the engine quits. Airplanes have engines too that sometimes quit, and it is easier to suppose that “stall” would come to mean that an airplane’s engine quits. But that isn’t what it means at all, so I think the word must have come to its aviation meaning via a different route. ETA: I hadn’t been aware, until this thread, that “stall” was a more general term in fluid dynamics referring to the separation of laminar flow of a fluid over a surface. I didn’t know that the term extended beyond that usage in airplanes. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-etymology-of-stall-fluid-mechanics/804237/10 "2017-12-13T13:01:59Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > ETA: I hadn’t been aware, until this thread, that “stall” was a more general term in fluid dynamics referring to the separation of laminar flow of a fluid over a surface. Not separation of flow over just any surface - specifically [foils,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foil_(fluid_mechanics)) i.e. surfaces designed to produce high lift (force perpendicular to flow) at the price of small drag (force parallel to flow). Stall happens not only to wings, but also to propellers, helicopter rotors, and centrifugal/axial flow compressors. The latter is a component of jet engines and turbochargers. In jet engines it manifests as [compressor stall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressor_stall), a transient, violent (and very exciting) reversal of flow through the engine caused by an externally imposed disruption of airflow into the engine or damage to the compressor blades ([as from a bird strike](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE)); it’s most likely under conditions of high pressure differential and low flow across the compressor blades, i.e. something analogous to a high angle of attack on an aircraft wing. The flow reversal relieves the high pressure inside the engine, after which normal flow is restored and pressure builds up again, repeating the cycle over and over again. In turbochargers and centrifugal superchargers under high boost/low flow operation, the cycling stalling happens pretty fast and is known as [turbo surging.](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=turbo+surge)