stair

From Middle English steire, staire, stayre, stayer, steir, steyre, steyer, from Old English stǣġer (“stair, staircase”), from Proto-West Germanic *staigri, 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/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /stɛə/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /steː/
• (New Zealand, cheer–chair merger) IPA^(key): /stiə/
• (New Zealand, without the cheer–chair merger) IPA^(key): /steə/
• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /steɹ/
• (Lancashire, fair–fur merger) IPA^(key): /stɜː(ɹ)/
• Rhymes: -ɛə(ɹ)
• Homophones: stare; steer (cheer–chair merger); stir (fair–fur merger)

stair (plural stairs)

2. A single step in a staircase.

   Synonym: step

4. 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

• sdair (obsolete)^[1]

From Old Irish stoir, from Latin historia, from Ancient Greek ἱστορίᾱ (historíā).^[2] Doublet of stór.

• (Munster, Connacht) IPA^(key): /sˠt̪ˠaɾʲ/^[3]
• (Ulster) IPA^(key): /sˠt̪ˠæɾʲ/^[4]

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
• de Bhaldraithe, Tomás (1959) “stair”, in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm
• “stair”, in New English-Irish Dictionary, Foras na Gaeilge, 2013–2025