01 n. A floor or story of a house.
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1.
A floor or story of a house.[Obs.]
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2.
An elevated platform on which an orator may speak, a play be performed, an exhibition be presented, or the like.
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3.
A floor elevated for the convenience of mechanical work, or the like; a scaffold; a staging.
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4.
A platform, often floating, serving as a kind of wharf.
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5.
The floor for scenic performances; hence, the theater; the playhouse; hence, also, the profession of representing dramatic compositions; the drama, as acted or exhibited.“Knights, squires, and steeds, must enter on the stage.” — Pope.“Lo! where the stage, the poor, degraded stage, Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age.” — C. Sprague.
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6.
A place where anything is publicly exhibited; the scene of any noted action or career; the spot where any remarkable affair occurs; as, politicians must live their lives on the public stage.“When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools.” — Shak.“Music and ethereal mirth Wherewith the stage of air and earth did ring.” — Miton.
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7.
The platform of a microscope, upon which an object is placed to be viewed. See Illust. of Microscope. See: Microscope
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8.
A place of rest on a regularly traveled road; a stage house; a station; a place appointed for a relay of horses.
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9.
A degree of advancement in a journey; one of several portions into which a road or course is marked off; the distance between two places of rest on a road; as, a stage of ten miles.“A stage . . . signifies a certain distance on a road.” — Jeffrey.“He traveled by gig, with his wife, his favorite horse performing the journey by easy stages.” — Smiles.
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10.
A degree of advancement in any pursuit, or of progress toward an end or result.“Such a polity is suited only to a particular stage in the progress of society.” — Macaulay.
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11.
A large vehicle running from station to station for the accommodation of the public; a stagecoach; an omnibus.[Obsolescent]“I went in the sixpenny stage.” — Swift.
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12.
One of several marked phases or periods in the development and growth of many animals and plants; as, the larval stage; pupa stage; zoea stage.(Biol.)
Phrases & compounds
Stage box —
a box close to the stage in a theater.
Stage carriage —
a stagecoach.
Stage door —
the actors' and workmen's entrance to a theater.
Stage lights —
the lights by which the stage in a theater is illuminated.
Stage micrometer —
a graduated device applied to the stage of a microscope for measuring the size of an object.
Stage wagon —
a wagon which runs between two places for conveying passengers or goods.
Stage whisper —
a loud whisper, as by an actor in a theater, supposed, for dramatic effect, to be unheard by one or more of his fellow actors, yet audible to the audience; an aside.