stair
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English steire, staire, stayre, stayer, steir, steyre, steyer, from Old English stǣġer (“stair, staircase”), from Proto-Germanic *staigriz (“stairs, scaffolding”), from Proto-Indo-European *steygʰ- (“to walk, proceed, march, climb”). Cognate with Dutch steiger (“a stair, step, wharf, pier, scaffolding”), Middle Low German steiger, steir (“scaffolding”), German Low German Steiger (“a scaffold; trestle”). Related to Old English āstǣġan (“to ascend, go up, embark”), Old English stīġan (“to go, move, reach; ascend, mount, go up, spring up, rise; scale”), German Stiege (“a flight of stairs”). More at sty.
Pronunciation
[edit]- (General American) IPA(key): /stɛɚ/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /stɛə/
Audio (US): (file) - Rhymes: -ɛə(ɹ)
- Homophone: stare
Noun
[edit]stair (plural stairs)
- A single step in a staircase.
- Synonym: step
- A series of steps; a staircase.
- 1899, Hughes Mearns, Antigonish:
- Yesterday, upon the stair / I met a man who wasn’t there / He wasn’t there again today / I wish, I wish he’d go away …
Usage notes
[edit]- Stairs and stair are used to refer to a single staircase, mostly interchangeably in the UK.
Synonyms
[edit]- (Cockney rhyming slang) apples and pears
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
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See also
[edit]Anagrams
[edit]Irish
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Old Irish stoir, from Latin historia, from Ancient Greek ἱστορίᾱ (historíā). Doublet of stór.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]stair f (genitive singular staire, nominative plural startha)
Declension
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “stair”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
- de Bhaldraithe, Tomás (1959) “stair”, in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm
- “stair”, in New English-Irish Dictionary, Foras na Gaeilge, 2013-2024
- Quiggin, E. C. (1906) A Dialect of Donegal, Cambridge University Press, page 32
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *steygʰ-
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɛə(ɹ)
- Rhymes:English/ɛə(ɹ)/1 syllable
- English terms with homophones
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- Irish terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- Irish terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *weyd-
- Irish terms inherited from Old Irish
- Irish terms derived from Old Irish
- Irish terms derived from Latin
- Irish terms derived from Ancient Greek
- Irish doublets
- Irish terms with IPA pronunciation
- Irish lemmas
- Irish nouns
- Irish feminine nouns
- Irish literary terms
- Irish second-declension nouns