stair
/stɛɚ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.26 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
A surname.
Example Sentences
- "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 …"
- "Among other work done, according to the letter: CPR replaced the bottom of a deteriorating stair column base with hollow steel structural sections; conducted exploratory demolition on the underside of an eave that required “removal and reconstruction”; and removed all loose “cracked, spalled, deteriorated, and delaminated concrete” and damaged stucco from the underside of balcony eaves on 114 of the building’s 136 units, the letter said."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *steygʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *stéygʰeti Proto-Germanic *stīganą Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti Proto-Germanic *-janą Proto-Germanic *staigijaną Proto-Indo-European *-rós Proto-Germanic *-raz Proto-Germanic *staigraz Proto-Germanic *staigriz Proto-West Germanic *staigri Old English stǣġer Middle English steire English 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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: steire, stǣġer, *staigri, *staigriz, *steygʰ-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /stɛɚ/
- British English: /stɛə/