stair

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.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /stɛɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /stɛə/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɛə(ɹ)
• Homophone: stare

stair (plural stairs)

1. A single step in a staircase.

   Synonym: step

2. 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 …

• Stairs and stair are used to refer to a single staircase, mostly interchangeably in the UK.

• (Cockney rhyming slang) apples and pears

• ladder
• landing
• scaffold

• ISTAR, Ritsa, Sarti, Sitar, Trias, airts, arist, astir, sitar, stria, tarsi, tiars, tisar

From Old Irish stoir, from Latin historia, from Ancient Greek ἱστορίᾱ (historíā). Doublet of stór.

• IPA^(key): /sˠt̪ˠaɾʲ/
• (Ulster) IPA^(key): /sˠt̪ˠæɾʲ/

stair f (genitive singular staire, nominative plural startha)

1. history
2. account, story
3. (literary) repute, fame

• bréagstair
• stairiúil

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “stair”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• Entries containing “stair” in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm, 1959, by Tomás de Bhaldraithe.
• Entries containing “stair” in New English-Irish Dictionary by Foras na Gaeilge.
• Quiggin, E. C. (1906) A Dialect of Donegal, Cambridge University Press, page 32