stone: [OE] Stone is a general Germanic word, with relatives in German stein, Dutch steen, and Swedish and Danish sten. These all go back to a prehistoric *stainaz, which was derived from a base denoting ‘stiffness’ or ‘solidity’ (source also of Greek stía ‘pebble’ and stéar ‘stiff, fat’, Sanskrit styā- ‘stiffen’, and Serbo-Croat stijena ‘rock’). The use of the English term for a measure of weight, equal to fourteen pounds, dates from the 14th century.
