stages

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of stage.

   The early stages of the disease are often hard to detect.

   Workers built two new stages for the music festival.

   Note

   The noun takes the regular -s plural, and the same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb (she stages a play). As a noun it covers two families of meaning. One is phases in a sequence, such as the stages of a disease or the stages of a rocket used one after another. The other is raised floors, from a theater platform to scaffolding, a story or a floating wharf. Context, not form, tells them apart.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of stage.

   The company stages its annual conference in a different city each year.

   Whenever attention drops, the union stages a public demonstration.

   Note

   Here the -s marks a present-tense verb with a singular subject, and nearly every meaning wants an object: she stages a play, a union stages a protest, a doctor stages a disease by judging how far it has progressed. Spaceflight is the exception, where the verb can stand alone. A rocket stages when it drops a spent section and lights the engines of the one above.

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