1894 Brewer’s / S / Steal
A handle. Stealing—putting handles on (Yorkshire). This is the Anglo-Saxon stela (a stalk or handle).
“Steale or handell of a staffe, manche, hantel.” Palsgrave.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.