staying
Syllables: stay·ing/ˈsteɪ.ɪŋ/
staying is the present participle and gerund of stay.
Meaning of stay
Verb
stay (third-person singular simple present stays, present participle staying, simple past and past participle stayed or (obsolete) staid)
- To remain in a particular place, especially for a definite or short period of time; sojourn; abide.
- We stayed in Hawaii for a week. I can only stay for an hour.
- Synonyms:
- abide
- To continue to have a particular quality.
- Wear gloves so your hands stay warm.
- Synonyms:
- continue
- To prop; support; sustain; hold up; steady.
- Lord Mayor of London. See, where he stands between two clergymen!
Duke of Buckingham. Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,
To stay him from the fall of vanity:c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- Lord Mayor of London. See, where he stands between two clergymen!
- To support from sinking; to sustain with strength; to satisfy in part or for the time.
- […] he has devoured a whole loaf of bread and butter, as fast as Phoebe could cut it, and it has not staid his stomach for a minute […]1826, [Walter Scott], chapter XX, in Woodstock; Or, The Cavalier. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London...
- To stop; detain; keep back; delay; hinder.
- Your ships are stay’d at Venice.c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- To restrain; withhold; check; stop.
- […] all that may but with any the least shew of possibility stay their mindes from thinking that true, which they heartily wish were false, but cannot think it so […]1597, Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book 5, in The Works of Mr. Richard Hooker, London: Andrew Crook, 1666, p.
- Synonyms:
- curb
Noun
staying (plural stayings)
- A stay or visit.
- The years that follow are chiefly noteworthy for his intercourse with four clever girl cousins called Southall, and sundry stayings at Moseley with a cheery, literary old grandmother[…]1907, The National Review, volume 48, page 135
- But he found it strange to think […] of all these little things that cluster round the comings, and the stayings, and the goings, that he would know nothing of them, nothing of what they had been, as long as he lived, […]1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC
Forms of staying
| plural | stayings |
|---|
Words formed from staying
Phrases with staying
Words that rhyme with staying
Questions about staying
- What does staying mean?
- Staying means a stay or visit.
- What is staying the present participle and gerund of?
- Staying is the present participle and gerund of stay.
- What part of speech is staying?
- Staying is a noun.
- How do you pronounce staying?
- Staying is pronounced /ˈsteɪ.ɪŋ/.
- What is the plural of staying?
- The plural of staying is stayings.
Words near staying in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: staying (page history and authors); stay (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-staying.ogg.
Cite this entry: “staying.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/staying. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.