stays

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of stay.

   He stays calm under pressure during every emergency.

   The corner shop stays open until midnight on weekends.

   Note

   The final -y is kept because a vowel comes before it: stay becomes stays, as play becomes plays, unlike try and tries. The form inherits two different patterns. As a linking verb it comes before an adjective (the shop stays open). In the older senses of propping or holding back, it takes a direct object (a gesture that stays his hand).

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of stay.

   The court granted several stays of execution over the years.

   Sailors checked the stays that held the mast upright in the storm.

   Note

   A regular plural that covers every meaning of the noun, from a visit to a court's postponement: two short stays abroad, repeated stays of execution. Countable meanings like these take the plural easily. The abstract ones, steadiness and restraint, rarely do. The same spelling also names the corset and serves as the verb's present-tense form, so the surrounding words decide which one you are reading.

3. 3
   nounplural

   A corset; a stiffened undergarment laced tightly around the torso to shape the waist and support the back.

   The actress wore period stays beneath her gown for the costume drama.

   Her stays creaked faintly as she bent to retrieve the fallen handkerchief.

   Similarcorset

   Note

   A plural-only noun, like trousers or scissors: a single garment is still her stays, and the verb agrees in the plural (her stays were laced). To count them, use pairs. Kipling's "The Education of Otis Yeere" (1889) prices them at "six-eight a pair." Norman Lindsay's Redheap (1930) shows the garment pressing against the body, with breasts that "strove against the enlacement of her stays."

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