"stage" - meanings, definitions, synonyms, thesaurus and antonyms

\Stage\, n. [OF. estage, F. ['e]tage, (assumed) LL.
staticum, from L. stare to stand. See {Stand}, and cf.
{Static}.]
1. A floor or story of a house. [Obs.] --Wyclif.

2. An elevated platform on which an orator may speak, a play
   be performed, an exhibition be presented, or the like.

3. A floor elevated for the convenience of mechanical work,
   or the like; a scaffold; a staging.

4. A platform, often floating, serving as a kind of wharf.

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.

6. A place where anything is publicly exhibited; the scene of
   any noted action or carrer; the spot where any remarkable
   affair occurs.

         When we are born, we cry that we are come To this
         stage of fools.                       --Shak.

         Music and ethereal mirth Wherewith the stage of air
         and earth did ring.                   --Miton.

7. The platform of a microscope, upon which an object is
   placed to be viewed. See Illust. of {Microscope}.

8. A place of rest on a regularly traveled road; a stage
   house; a station; a place appointed for a relay of horses.

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.

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.

11. A large vehicle running from station to station for the
    accomodation of the public; a stagecoach; an omnibus. ``A
    parcel sent you by the stage.'' --Cowper.

          I went in the sixpenny stage.        --Swift.

12. (Biol.) One of several marked phases or periods in the
    development and growth of many animals and plants; as,
    the larval stage; pupa stage; z[oe]a stage.

{Stage box}, a box close to the stage in a theater.

{Stage carriage}, a stagecoach.

{Stage door}, the actor's 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.

\Stage\, v. t.
To exhibit upon a stage, or as upon a stage; to display
publicly. --Shak.