staying

Pluralstayings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of stay.

   The delegation is staying at a hotel near the conference center.

   Staying focused for hours took real effort.

   Note

   One -ing form does two jobs. After a form of be it builds the progressive (is staying at a hotel). As a gerund it fills a noun's slot (Staying focused took effort). Because stay can be a linking verb, staying is often followed by an adjective rather than an adverb: staying calm, staying focused, never staying calmly. With an object it carries the older senses of propping up or holding back.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A stay or a visit.

   Their staying at the embassy stretched into several months.

   A brief staying in the countryside restored her spirits.

   Similarvisit, sojourn, residence

   Note

   A countable noun, and it shows that by going plural: stayings. Samuel Beckett's Watt (1953) sets it in a row with the comings and the goings, and The National Review of 1907 speaks of sundry stayings at Moseley. That plural is the easiest way to tell it from the verbal -ing form, which can take objects and adverbs but never an -s.

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