Stay
verbTo remain in a place or condition rather than leaving or changing.
How to spell stay
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce stay
What does stay mean?
- verbTo remain in a place or condition rather than leaving or changing.
- nounA period of remaining or living somewhere temporarily.
Stay in a sentence
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verb
She decided to stay home and finish the report.
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noun
Their stay at the hotel lasted three nights.
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verb
Please stay calm while we sort out the problem.
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noun
The hospital stay was shorter than the doctors expected.
Where does stay come from?
Language of origin: Latin
The everyday verb 'stay' arrived in English in the late 1400s from Old French ester or estai, which traced back to the Latin verb stare, meaning literally 'to stand' or 'to stand still'. From the idea of standing firm in one place grew the familiar senses of remaining, lingering, and not moving on. The same Latin stare lies behind a whole family of English words, including 'stable', 'stationary', and 'state', all carrying that core notion of standing fixed. A separate but similar-looking 'stay' meaning a supporting rope or brace comes from a native Germanic root (Old English staeg, a ship's rigging), which is why the word can describe both lingering and propping something up. The spelling is happily regular, with the long 'ay' sound matching its written form, so the main thing to remember is simply the single 'a-y' ending rather than any silent trap.
How the word is built
- stay (single root, from Latin stare 'to stand'); no prefix or suffix in the base form
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