Stay
STAY, verb intransitive preterit tense staid, for stayed. [Latin , to stand.]
1. To remain; to continue in a place; to abide for any indefinite time. Do you stay here, while I go to the next house. stay here a week. We staid at the Hotel Montmorenci.
STAY, I command you; stay and hear me first.
2. To continue in a state.
The flames augment, and stay at their full highth, then languish to decay.
3. To wait; to attend; to forbear to act.
I stay for Turnus.
Would ye stay for them from having husbands? [[Ruth 1#13|Ruth 1:13]].
She would command the hasty sun to stay
5. To dwell.
I must stay a little on one action.
6. To rest; to rely; to confide in; to trust.
Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression, and stay thereon--[[Isaiah 30#12|Isaiah 30:12]].
STAY, verb transitive preterit tense and participle passive staid, for stayed.
1. To stop; to hold from proceeding; to withhold; to restrain.
All that may stay the mind from thinking that true which they heartily wish were false.
To stay these sudden gusts of passion.
2. To delay; to obstruct; to hinder from proceeding.
Your ships are staid at Venice.
I was willing to stay my reader on an argument that appeared to me to be new.
3. To keep from departure; as, you might have staid me here.
4. To stop from motion or falling; to prop; to hold up; to support.
Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands. [[Exodus 17#12|Exodus 17:12]].
Sallows and reeds for vineyards useful found to stay thy vines.
5. To support from sinking; to sustain with strength; as, to take a luncheon to stay the stomach.
STAY, noun
1. Continuance in a place; abode for a time indefinite; as, you make a short stay in this city.
Embrace the hero, and his stay implore.
2. Stand; stop; cessation of motion or progression.
Affairs of state seemd rather to stand at a stay
[But in this sense, we now use stand; to be at a stand.]
3. Stop; obstruction; hinderance from progress.
Grieved with each step, tormented with each stay
4. Restraint of passion; moderation; caution; steadiness; sobriety.
With prudent stay he long deferrd the rough contention.
5. A fixed state.
Alas, what stay is there in human state!
6. Prop; support.
Trees serve as so many stays for their vines.
My only strength and stay!
The Lord is my stay [[Psalms 18#18|Psalms 18:18]].
The stay and the staff, the means of supporting and preserving life. [[Isaiah 3#1|Isaiah 3:1]].
7. Steadiness of conduct.
8. In the rigging of a ship, a large strong rope employed to support the mast, by being extended from its upper end to the stem of the ship. The fore-stay reaches from the foremast head towards the bowsprit end; the main-stay extends to the ships stem; the mizen-stay is stretched to a collar on the main-mast, above the quarter deck, etc.
STAYs, in seamanship, implies the operation of going about or changing the course of a ship, with a shifting of the sails. To be in stays, is to lie with the head to the wind, and the sails so arranged as to check her progress.