stance

Pluralstances

Formsstances, stancing, stanced

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A person's opinion or attitude toward an issue or question.

   The senator softened her stance on the tax proposal after the hearing.

   He took a firm stance against cutting the after-school program.

   Similarposition, stand, posture

   Note

   The figurative twin of the physical posture describes where one stands on a question. It usually takes on before the issue (a stance on gun control), and a stance can be taken, softened or held firmly. Position, posture and stand all borrow the same picture of footing, so each can often replace it.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   The manner or posture in which someone positions and holds their body while standing.

   The coach corrected his batting stance before the next pitch.

   A wrestler with a stable stance is hard to knock off his feet.

   Similarposture, position, footing, pose, bearing

   Note

   Sport and medicine both treat this as something to examine and coach. Neurologists pair stance with gait, testing how a barefoot patient stands and walks for clues to disease. Baseball writers follow a batter's stance as a signature, one that Cal Ripken Jr. could change midseason, midgame, even mid-at-bat. In both worlds the word means the deliberate set of feet and body, not simply being upright.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A place where someone or something stands; a position, site, or station.

   The lookout returned to his usual stance on the hill above the river.

   Workers marked out each stance in the yard with painted lines.

   Similarpost, station, position, spot, place

   Note

   The meaning closest to the word's roots: Middle English staunce covered a place to stand, a battle station and even one's standing in society, from Old French estance. Walter Scott gives it a martial ring, with a mountain fixed in its stance in The Lady of the Lake (1810) and soldiers holding stance like ocean-rocks in The Field of Waterloo (1815). The Scottish uses for bus stops and market pitches grow from it.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A foothold or ledge on which a climber stands to set up a belay.

   From a sheltered stance behind the flake, she brought up her partner.

   The leader built an anchor at the next stance before belaying the second climber.

   Similarledge, foothold

   Note

   Climbing's word for the belay station itself: the ledge or foothold where a climber stops, anchors, and takes in the rope for a partner. Mountaineering manuals treat the stance as part of the safety system, not just a place to wait. In a harness belay it is the belayer's first line of defense, with the anchor as a critical backup. On a long route, climbers build one stance after another.

5. 5
   noundialectalScotlandcountable

   A place where buses or taxis wait for passengers, such as a bus stop or taxi stand.

   The new bus stance has covered seating for waiting passengers.

   Drivers are not allowed to park outside the designated stance reserved for waiting taxis.

   Similarstand

   Note

   Scottish usage puts stance where speakers elsewhere would say taxi rank, bus stop or its synonym stand. The Bye-laws for the Hackney Carriages of Edinburgh (1867) already set how many carriages could wait at each stance and how new stances were appointed. It is an ordinary countable noun, usually led by the vehicle it serves: bus stance, taxi stance.

6. 6
   noundialectalScotlandcountable

   A site where a fair or market takes place, or a pitch from which a street trader does business.

   Each trader pays a weekly fee for a stance in the market square.

   He set up his fruit stall on the same stance every fair day.

   Similarstand

   Note

   Like the Scottish bus stop, this is a place set aside, but for trade rather than transport: a market pitch or a street trader's spot. In Scottish legal writing it can also mean a plot of ground in a burgh. The 1877 case Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Respondents, reported by Middleton Rettie, concerns the proprietor of a stance beside a tenement and the cost of a shared gable.

7. 7
   verbdialectalScotlandtransitive

   To place, position, or station something; specifically, to put cattle into a pen or enclosure in preparation for sale.

   Drovers stance the cattle in holding pens the night before the auction.

   Stewards must stance each lot separately so buyers can inspect the animals.

   Similarpen, place, position, station

   Note

   Scots uses the noun as a verb too, for putting animals or people in their place. It is regular (stanced, stancing). The song Sheriff-Muir, printed in David Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs (1776), has Rob Roy never advancing "from the place he was stanc'd." It sits naturally beside the market-ground meaning, since cattle are stanced before they are sold.

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