stag

English

Alternative forms

  • steg (dialectal), staig (Scotland), stagg, stagge (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English steg, stagge, from Old English stagga, stacga (“a stag”) and Old Norse steggi, steggr (“a male animal”), both from Proto-Germanic *staggijô, *staggijaz (“male, male deer, porcupine”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *stegʰ-, *stengʰ- (“to sting; rod, blade; sharp, stiff”). Cognate with Icelandic steggi, steggur (“tomcat, male fox”). Related to staggard, staggon.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /stæɡ/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -æɡ

Noun

stag (plural stags)

A stag deer of species Cervus nippon. (2)
  1. An adult male deer.
  2. A colt, or filly.
  3. (by extension, obsolete) A romping girl.
  4. An improperly or late castrated bull or ram – also called a bull seg (see note under ox).
  5. An outside irregular dealer in stocks, who is not a member of the exchange.
  6. One who applies for the allotment of shares in new projects, with a view to sell immediately at a premium, and not to hold the stock.
  7. The Eurasian wren, Troglodytes troglodytes.
  8. (usually attributive) An unmarried male, a bachelor; a male not accompanying a female at a social event.
  9. A social event for males held in honor of a groom on the eve of his wedding, attended by male friends of the groom, sometimes a fund-raiser.
    The stag will be held in the hotel's ballroom
  10. A stag beetle (family Lucanidae).
    • 2007, Eric R. Eaton, ‎Kenn Kaufman, Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America (page 132)
      Members of the genus Pasimachus […] can be confused with stag beetles […] but stags have elbowed antennae.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

stag (third-person singular simple present stags, present participle stagging, simple past and past participle stagged)

  1. (intransitive, Britain) To act as a "stag", an irregular dealer in stocks.
  2. (transitive) To watch; to dog, or keep track of.

Translations

Adverb

stag (not comparable)

  1. Of a man, attending a formal social function without a date.
    My brother went stag to prom because he couldn't find a date.

Translations

See also

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for stag in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams

Swedish

Noun

stag ?

  1. (nautical) A stay.
  2. An appliance with a function similar to a nautical stay.
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