Stony is from Old English 'stānig', full of stones, from 'stān' (stone) plus the adjectival suffix '-ig' (modern '-y'). Important recorded forms include stānig (Old English) and stān (Old English). Morphologically, the word preserves a built structure whose named elements carry the historical sense into English. The modern sense continues the older lexical line without requiring a separate origin. In current use it covers full of or resembling stone; cold and unfeeling. The wider family includes derived forms such as stonily and stoniness and related words such as stone.