Stays

How to spell stays

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce stays

What does stays mean?

1. verbRemains in a place or condition; third-person singular of 'stay'.
2. nounRigid strips or ropes that hold something firm, such as the supports in a corset or the steadying lines on a ship.

Stays in a sentence

• verb

  She usually stays at the office until the report is finished.

• noun

  The dressmaker stiffened the bodice with whalebone stays.

• verb

  The heating stays on overnight when the temperature drops.

• noun

  The mast held because the stays were fastened tightly to the deck.

Where does stays come from?

Language of origin: French

The verb sense traces back through Old French ester, meaning 'to stand still' or 'to remain', which itself rests on the Latin stare, 'to stand'. English took it up in the late 1300s with the meaning 'to remain in a place', and the everyday third-person form 'stays' simply adds the -s ending. The noun sense has a separate but related thread: 'stay' meaning a supporting rope or prop comes partly from Old French estaie, 'a support', and was reinforced by an Old English nautical term, so the rigid supports in a corset and the steadying ropes of a ship both came to be called 'stays'. The unifying idea across these strands is steadiness, something that holds firm and does not move. Because the word is short and phonetically regular, the only thing to watch is keeping the plain -ays ending rather than reaching for -ais or -aze.

How the word is built

• stay (Old French ester/estai: to stand fast, or a support)
• -s (plural / third-person singular suffix)