stone [OE] An Old English word first found in the writings of Alfred the Great (849–99). The imperial unit of weight, recorded from the 14th century, is now equivalent to 14 pounds but formerly varied, and would originally have been just the weight of a particular rock used as a local measure. To cast (or throw) the first stone is to be the first to accuse or criticize. The phrase comes from St John’s Gospel. A group of men preparing to stone to death a woman who had committed adultery were told by Jesus: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.’ Drug takers have been stoned since the 1950s, originally in the USA—the image is of someone so dazed they seem to have been hit by a large stone. If something is set (or carved) in stone it is fixed and unchangeable. This refers to another biblical story, of Moses and the Ten Commandments. According to the Book of Genesis God wrote the Commandments on tablets of stone and handed them down to Moses on Mount Sinai.