Stage

Stage Stage (st[=a]j), 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. [1913 Webster]

2. An elevated platform on which an orator may speak, a play be performed, an exhibition be presented, or the like. [1913 Webster]

3. A floor elevated for the convenience of mechanical work, or the like; a scaffold; a staging. [1913 Webster]

4. A platform, often floating, serving as a kind of wharf. [1913 Webster]

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. [1913 Webster]

Knights, squires, and steeds, must enter on the stage. --Pope. [1913 Webster]

Lo! where the stage, the poor, degraded stage, Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age. --C. Sprague. [1913 Webster]

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. [1913 Webster +PJC]

When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools. --Shak. [1913 Webster]

Music and ethereal mirth Wherewith the stage of air and earth did ring. --Miton. [1913 Webster]

7. The platform of a microscope, upon which an object is placed to be viewed. See Illust. of {Microscope}. [1913 Webster]

8. A place of rest on a regularly traveled road; a stage house; a station; a place appointed for a relay of horses. [1913 Webster]

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. [1913 Webster]

A stage . . . signifies a certain distance on a road. --Jeffrey. [1913 Webster]

He traveled by gig, with his wife, his favorite horse performing the journey by easy stages. --Smiles. [1913 Webster]

10. A degree of advancement in any pursuit, or of progress toward an end or result. [1913 Webster]

Such a polity is suited only to a particular stage in the progress of society. --Macaulay. [1913 Webster]

11. A large vehicle running from station to station for the accommodation of the public; a stagecoach; an omnibus. ``A parcel sent you by the stage.'' --Cowper. [Obsolescent] [1913 Webster]

I went in the sixpenny stage. --Swift. [1913 Webster]

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. [1913 Webster]

{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. [1913 Webster]