Word.ws English Dictionary

withstay

withstay verb: to hold back; oppose; withstand.

Verb

withstay (third-person singular simple present withstays, present participle withstaying, simple past and past participle withstayed)

  1. (transitive) To hold back; oppose; withstand.
    • Death, careful of my learning, hath withstayed His final presence.1854, S. T. Dobell, Balder iii. 10
    • It filled the passage of the rising glade, And there withstayed the sun in dazzling sheen.1885, R. Bridges, Eros & Psyche iii. v. 29
    Synonyms:
    gainstay

Synonyms of withstay

Forms of withstay

third-person singular presentwithstays
present participlewithstaying
past participlewithstayed
pastwithstayed

Origin of withstay

From with- (“back, against”) + stay.

Questions about withstay

What does withstay mean?
Withstay means to hold back; oppose; withstand.
What part of speech is withstay?
Withstay is a verb.
What is the past tense of withstay?
The past tense of withstay is withstayed.

Words near withstay in the dictionary

  1. withstander
  2. withstanders
  3. withstanding
  4. withstandingness
  5. withstands
  6. withstay
  7. withstayed
  8. withstaying
  9. withstays
  10. withstood
  11. withstrain

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: withstay (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.

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Cite this entry: “withstay.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/withstay. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.