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Webster 1828 Edition

Noun.

plu.

A bodice; a kind of waistcoat stiffened with whalebone or other thing, worn by females.

Stays, of a ship. [See Stay.]

Station; fixed anchorage.

Any support; that which keeps another extended.

Weavers, stretch your stays upon the weft.

See also: staþs

stays

plural of stay
(plural only) A corset.
- 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Book XIII, chapter ix (p. 502):
  Her face was whiter than snow, and her heart was throbbing through her stays.

stays