below stairs
below stairs prepositional phrase: on a floor lower than the one a speaker currently occupies; below the main floor of a multi-floor building.
Prepositional phrase
- On a floor lower than the one a speaker currently occupies; below the main floor of a multi-floor building.
- I’le lock her into her Sister’s Room below Stairs, for to night, there’s no Balcony there.1691, Thomas D’Urfey, Love for Money, or, The Boarding School, London: J. Hindmarsh and Abel Roper, act V, scene 1, page 45
- it was talkd, that there was an old gentleman belowstairs whom they fancied to be Sr. Isaac Newton.1752, William Stukeley, Memoirs of Isaac Newton's life
- Synonyms:
- downstairs
- Antonyms:
- above stairs, upstairs
- In or pertaining to the lowest levels of a large house where the house staff work and are accommodated, contrasted with above stairs where the owning family reside.
- a. 1631, John Donne, letter to H. Goodere, in Letters to Severall Persons of Honour written by John Donne, London: Richard Marriot, 1651, pp. 158-159,
My daughter Constance is at this time with me; or the emptinesse of the town, hath made me, who otherwise live upon the almes of others, a... - It vvas his younger Siſters Chamber, that I vvas in, and as there vvas no Body in the Houſe, but the Maids belovv Stairs, he vvas it may be the ruder: […]1722 (indicated as 1721), [Daniel Defoe], The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c. […], London: […] W[illiam Rufus] Chetwood, […]; and T. Edling, […], published 1722, →OCLC, page...
- a. 1631, John Donne, letter to H. Goodere, in Letters to Severall Persons of Honour written by John Donne, London: Richard Marriot, 1651, pp. 158-159,
- Common, vulgar.
- Unless we wanted dear Simkins, given he is loyalty personified, the Queen Mother used to die of jealousy, to do the below stairs POV that "pleb" would be considered positively affectionate & unquestionably better than prole & actually a great improvement on Simkins?2012 September 25, Catherine Bennett, “Mrs Cameron's diary: more trouble with the plebs”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
- A paragon must embody liberal democracy. To get its hands dirty defending it is below-stairs.2023 February 11, Janan Ganesh, “After Germany’s fall, which is the paragon nation?”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 22
- The areas of a large house in which house staff work, or the staff that work there.
Examples of below stairs in a sentence
- She felt immensely superior to him suddenly, to all the people below stairs.1952, Patricia Highsmith, chapter 8, in The Price of Salt, New York: Norton, published 2004, page 94:
- Having lived the stereotype of the penniless artist in Paris, Soutine was drawn not to the glamour of the roaring 1920s, but to those in the world below stairs[.]2017 November 17, Skye Sherwin, “Chaïm Soutine’s Pastry Cook of Cagnes: a portrait of youth, but not innocence”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
Synonyms of below stairs
Antonyms
Forms of below stairs
| alternative form | below-stairs |
|---|---|
| alternative form | belowstairs |
Origin of below stairs
From below + stairs.
Questions about below stairs
- What does below stairs mean?
- Below stairs means on a floor lower than the one a speaker currently occupies; below the main floor of a multi-floor building.
- How do you use below stairs in a sentence?
- She felt immensely superior to him suddenly, to all the people below stairs.
- What part of speech is below stairs?
- Below stairs is a prepositional phrase.
Words near below stairs in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: below stairs (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “below stairs.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/below_stairs. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.