STYLE. Richardson says— " steps raised to pass over," which is perhaps as good a defmition as coiUd be given iu so small a number of words ; but the st3'les which are ' passages over a fence so contrived as that cattle cannot malce use of lliem ' — as the M'ord might be more elaborately defined — differ nearly as mucli inter se in different districts, as do tlie styles of different authors. There is, however, no doubt that the surname, whether it originated in Sussex, in Cornwall, or in Northumberland, (whose th ruff- ato tie styles I shall never forget) was derived from the residence of the first bearer near such a barrier. In the middle ages, the phrase " John at Style " was in common use to denote a 23lebeian, and it still survives iu a slightly altered form iu the saying, " Jack Noakes and Tom Styles." See Noakes. H.R. Ate Stile. De la Stile.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.