stare
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: stâr
ipa: /stɛɚ/
ipa: /stɛə/
ipa: /steː/
note: without the cheer–chair merger
ipa: /steə/
note: New Zealand, cheer–chair merger
ipa: /stiə/
ipa: /steɹ/
note: Lancashire, fair–fur merger
ipa: /stɜː(ɹ)/
rhymes: -ɛə(ɹ)
homophone: stair
homophone: steer (cheer–chair merger)
homophone: stir (fair–fur merger)
Forms: form: stares
form: staring
form: stared
form: stared
Etymology: From Middle English staren, from Old English starian (“to stare”), from Proto-West Germanic *starēn, from Proto-Germanic *starjaną, *starāną (“to be fixed, be rigid”), from Proto-Indo-European *ster-.
Cognate with Dutch staren (“to stare”), German starren (“to stare”), German starr (“stiff”). More at start.
Senses: examples: text: She found him staring with raised eyebrows at her.
text: Her sturdy stallion had now unbutton'd, and produced naked, stiff, and erect, that wonderful machine, which I had never seen before, and which, for the interest my own seat of pleasure began to take furiously in it, I star'd at with all the eyes I had
ref: 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC:
english: Fanny Hill
translation: Fanny Hill
text: A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire. In fact, that arm-chair had been an extravagance of Mrs. Bunting. She had wanted her husband to be comfortable after the day's work was done, and she had paid thirty-seven shillings for the chair.
ref: 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0016:
glosses: To look fixedly (at something).
raw_tags: followed by "at"
examples: text: to stare a timid person into submission
glosses: To influence in some way by looking fixedly.
examples: text: staring windows or colours
glosses: To be very conspicuous on account of size, prominence, colour, or brilliancy.
examples: text: Makest my blood cold, and my hair to stare.
ref: 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:
text: Take off all the staring straws, twigs and jags in the hive.
ref: 1707, John Mortimer, The whole Art of Husbandry, in the way of Managing and Improving of Land:
glosses: To stand out; to project; to bristle.
Synonyms: word: gaw
word: gloar
word: glom
word: stare
Hypernyms: word: look
Hyponyms: word: gape
word: gaze
word: gawp
word: gawk
word: glad-eye
word: glare
word: glop
word: glope
word: glore
word: glower
word: goggle
word: gorm
word: gove
word: look daggers
word: ogle
word: outstare
Derived terms: outstare
stare at the wall
stare daggers
stare down
staredown
stare into space
stare like a stuck pig
stare out
stare someone in the face
upstare