1. n. a baseball bat. (Baseball.) He holds the stick up higher than most batters.

2. n. a pool cue. He drew the stick back slowly, sighted again, and gave the cue ball a sharp knock.

3. n. a golf club. These aren’t my sticks, and you aren’t my caddy. What’s going on around here?

4. n. the lever that controls the horizontal and vertical surfaces of the tail of an aircraft. The pilot pulled back on the stick, and the plane did nothing—being that he hadn’t even started the engine or anything. You pull back on the stick, which lowers the tail and raises the nose, and up you go.

5. n. a gearshift lever in a car. (see also stick shift.) I keep reaching for the stick in a car with automatic.

6. n. a drunkard. (Possibly from dipstick, shitstick, or swizzle-stick.) Get that stick out of here before he makes a mess.

7. n. a person’s legs. (Always plural.) He’s got good sticks under him, but he won’t use them.

8. and the sticks n. a rural or backwoods area. (Always with the in this sense and always plural.) You hear a lot about how things are in the sticks. They’re worse.