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stays
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
stays

"laced underbodice," c.1600, from plural of stay (n.1). Also compare bodice.

Wiktionary
stays

n. 1 (plural of stay English) 2 (context plurale tantum English) A corset. vb. (en-third-person singular of: stay)

WordNet
stays

n. a woman's close-fitting foundation garment [syn: corset, girdle]

Wikipedia
Stays (nautical)

Stays are ropes, wires, or rods on sailing vessels that run fore-and-aft along the centerline from the masts to the hull, deck, bowsprit, or to other masts which serve to stabilize the masts. On a ship with a single mast, stays that run aft are called backstays and stays that run forward are called forestays. Along with shrouds, they form the primary stabilization for the standing rigging.

To "miss stays" is an unsuccessful attempt to tack.

Usage examples of "stays".

The one named Gail Robinson stays mostly in the pink and has even been seen by the queen.

She unlaced herself, took off her stays and her chemise, and told me to be quick and put on the clean one, but I was not speedy enough, being too much engaged by all I could see.

I want some fine linen for twenty-four chemises, some dimity for stays and petticoats, some muslin, some cambric for pocket-handkerchiefs, and many other articles which I should be very glad to find in your shop, for I am a stranger here, and God knows in what hands I am going to trust myself!

After her hair had been dressed, she took off her gown, locked up her jewellery in her bureau, put on the stays of a nun, in which she hid the two magnificent globes which had been during that fatiguing night the principal agents of my happiness, and assumed her monastic robes.

I helped her to put on her stays, and the sight of her charms inflamed my ardour, but I experienced more resistance than I had anticipated.

While the man was measuring her, she complained of feeling cold, as she was in her stays, and her beautiful breast was exposed.

And also, allow me to point out, it never stays in one place for very long.

Katie goes back into her car seat and stays there until Ben comes out of school.

Without the supportive structure, the irregular child stays up, which creates tension.

On sudden impulse he unwrapped his legs from the stays bracing the mast and held his arms and legs out to either side, balancing against the sway.

Alfred rarely leaves Trina, his Errin, but stays gone many days when he does.

She has left orders not to interfere with Browbridge so long as he stays on this floor.

Then take Bloom over and sit him down on his bunk and see he stays there.

Any man who goes in the Hole stays there 21 days is automatically sent up to the nut ward in the Station Hospital and given a Section 8.

He stays behind the hedges and slinks to the kitchen window, sniffing for gas.