Stair

How to spell stair

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce stair

What does stair mean?

1. nounA single step, or one of a series of steps, used for moving between different levels of a building.

Stair in a sentence

• She tripped on the bottom stair and dropped her bags.

• The top stair creaks every time someone walks on it.

Where does stair come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word comes from the Old English staeger, which referred to a structure for climbing, and it traces back to the same Germanic root as the verb stigan, meaning 'to climb' or 'to ascend'. That sense of rising step by step is why a 'stair' is literally something you mount to go higher. The plural 'stairs' and the compound 'staircase' grew up alongside it to describe a whole flight, while 'stair' on its own often names a single step. The word is closely related to 'sty' in the sense of climbing, and to similar words across the Germanic languages such as Dutch steiger, meaning a scaffold or jetty. Because it sounds exactly like 'stare', the eye-fixing verb, the two are constantly confused in writing, yet they have completely separate origins; remembering that a stair is part of a flight you climb helps keep the spelling apart.

How the word is built

• stair (single step in a flight), from Old English staeger (a climbing structure)

Words that sound like stair

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• stare: To look fixedly at someone or something for a long time, often with wide-open eyes.