Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The place, position, or function properly or customarily occupied by another.
- noun Advantage; service; purpose.
- transitive verb To be of advantage or service to; benefit.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To place; put; set.
- To place or put in a position of danger, difficulty, hardship, or the like; press; bestead.
- With up: to replace; fill.
- To avail; assist; benefit; serve; bo of service, advantage, or use to.
- To stop; stay.
- noun A place; place in general.
- noun Place or room which another had or might have: preceded by in: as, David died, and Solomon reigned in his stead. Hence instead.
- noun Space of time; while; moment.
- noun The frame on which a bed is laid: now rarely used except in the compound bedstead.
- noun A steading.
- noun Position or situation of affairs; state; condition; plight.
- noun Assistance; service; use; benefit; advantage; avail: usually in the phrases to stand in stead, to do stead (to render service).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Obs., except in composition. Place, or spot, in general.
- noun Place or room which another had, has, or might have.
- noun rare A frame on which a bed is laid; a bedstead.
- noun Prov. Eng. & Scot. A farmhouse and offices.
- noun in place of. See
Instead . - noun to be of use or great advantage.
- transitive verb To help; to support; to benefit; to assist.
- transitive verb obsolete To fill the place of.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
help ; tosupport ; tobenefit ; toassist . - verb To fill place of.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the post or function properly or customarily occupied or served by another
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word stead.
Examples
-
_Stead_, n. a place; it is often joined to other words, e.g. hall-stead, a hall or the place where a hall has been, as in the sentence, "I went to the pillared hall-stead;" n. _stead or bestead_, to serve, to aid, e.g. "to stead me in the fight."
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung William Morris 1865
-
They are in stead, establishing fashion policy and in a sense saying, "I dont care if women don't like it --- we are going to flood the market with so much of it so cheaply that they will feel they have no choice."
Modest Feminine Dress From the Pages of 1990 Victoria Magazine 2009
-
Republicans need to bring some suggestions for solutions for our state of affairs in stead of grand standing for the media.
-
That puts it in very different stead from a plea bargain, which is governed by a very different set of reliance interests.
The Volokh Conspiracy » “Garzon and the Trouble with International Law” 2010
-
But when it came to opening day or heading out on a trip I could not sleep and was usually up before the alarm went off, but many seasons have gone by and even though I have trained myself to go to bed early and get up early when that time change comes and it is 3: 45 in stead of 4: 45 (yuk!)
-
If this would happen maybe we can get answers to questions in stead of just "this bill will save money and get everyone insurance".
First on the Ticker: Nelson buys TV time on health care 2009
-
In college, in stead of going home on the weekend we would sometimes drop acid and lay on the floor with zepplin playing on the reel to reel with a speaker on each side of our head.
Think Progress » Palin attacks Family Guy’s ‘satire’ after excusing Limbaugh’s. 2010
-
They are in stead, establishing fashion policy and in a sense saying, "I dont care if women don't like it --- we are going to flood the market with so much of it so cheaply that they will feel they have no choice."
Modest Feminine Dress From the Pages of 1990 Victoria Magazine 2009
-
In college, in stead of going home on the weekend we would sometimes drop acid and lay on the floor with zepplin playing on the reel to reel with a speaker on each side of our head.
Think Progress » Palin attacks Family Guy’s ‘satire’ after excusing Limbaugh’s. 2010
-
But when it came to opening day or heading out on a trip I could not sleep and was usually up before the alarm went off, but many seasons have gone by and even though I have trained myself to go to bed early and get up early when that time change comes and it is 3: 45 in stead of 4: 45 (yuk!)
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.