See below stairs on Wiktionary
Download JSON data for below stairs meaning in All languages combined (5.2kB)
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "below",
"3": "stairs"
},
"expansion": "below + stairs",
"name": "compound"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From below + stairs.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "prepositional phrase",
"head": ""
},
"expansion": "below stairs",
"name": "head"
},
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "below stairs",
"name": "en-PP"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "prep_phrase",
"senses": [
{
"antonyms": [
{
"word": "above stairs"
},
{
"word": "upstairs"
}
],
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "33 31 7 29",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1691, Thomas D’Urfey, Love for Money, or, The Boarding School, London: J. Hindmarsh and Abel Roper, act V, scene 1, page 45",
"text": "I’le lock her into her Sister’s Room below Stairs, for to night, there’s no Balcony there.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1752, William Stukeley, Memoirs of Isaac Newton's life",
"text": "it was talkd, that there was an old gentleman belowstairs whom they fancied to be Sr. Isaac Newton.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1952, Patricia Highsmith, chapter 8, in The Price of Salt, New York: Norton, published 2004, page 94",
"text": "She felt immensely superior to him suddenly, to all the people below stairs.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"On a floor lower than the one a speaker currently occupies; below the main floor of a multi-floor building."
],
"id": "en-below_stairs-en-prep_phrase-cnEdlRYs",
"raw_glosses": [
"(dated) On a floor lower than the one a speaker currently occupies; below the main floor of a multi-floor building."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "downstairs"
}
],
"tags": [
"dated"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "British English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"_dis": "33 31 7 29",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "a. 1631, John Donne, letter to H. Goodere, in Letters to Severall Persons of Honour written by John Donne, London: Richard Marriot, 1651, pp. 158-159,\nMy daughter Constance is at this time with me; or the emptinesse of the town, hath made me, who otherwise live upon the almes of others, a houskeeper, for a moneth; and so she is my servant below stairs, and my companion above:"
},
{
"text": "1972, Robertson Davies, The Manticore, Toronto: New Canadian Library, 2015, Part 2, Chapter 1,\nChildren always lived closer to the servants than their elders, and Caroline and I never knew where we stood with anybody, and sometimes found ourselves hostages in dark, below-stairs intrigues."
},
{
"ref": "2017 November 17, Skye Sherwin, “Chaïm Soutine’s Pastry Cook of Cagnes: a portrait of youth, but not innocence”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
"text": "Having lived the stereotype of the penniless artist in Paris, Soutine was drawn not to the glamour of the roaring 1920s, but to those in the world below stairs[.]",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"In or pertaining to the lowest levels of a large house where the house staff work and are accommodated, contrasted with above stairs where the owning family reside."
],
"id": "en-below_stairs-en-prep_phrase-d0c~pihW",
"links": [
[
"above stairs",
"above stairs"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(UK, historical) In or pertaining to the lowest levels of a large house where the house staff work and are accommodated, contrasted with above stairs where the owning family reside."
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"historical"
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2012 September 25, Catherine Bennett, “Mrs Cameron's diary: more trouble with the plebs”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
"text": "Unless we wanted dear Simkins, given he is loyalty personified, the Queen Mother used to die of jealousy, to do the below stairs POV that \"pleb\" would be considered positively affectionate & unquestionably better than prole & actually a great improvement on Simkins?",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2023 February 11, Janan Ganesh, “After Germany's fall, which is the paragon nation?”, in FT Weekend, page 22",
"text": "A paragon must embody liberal democracy. To get its hands dirty defending it is below-stairs.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Common, vulgar."
],
"id": "en-below_stairs-en-prep_phrase-Vxh~P2o5",
"links": [
[
"Common",
"common"
],
[
"vulgar",
"vulgar"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(by extension) Common, vulgar."
],
"tags": [
"broadly"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "British English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"_dis": "33 31 7 29",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"The areas of a large house in which house staff work, or the staff that work there."
],
"id": "en-below_stairs-en-prep_phrase-v-~51wJU",
"raw_glosses": [
"(UK, historical, as noun) The areas of a large house in which house staff work, or the staff that work there."
],
"raw_tags": [
"as noun"
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"historical"
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "52 44 3 2",
"word": "below-stairs"
},
{
"_dis1": "52 44 3 2",
"word": "belowstairs"
}
],
"word": "below stairs"
}
{
"categories": [
"English compound terms",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English prepositional phrases"
],
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "below",
"3": "stairs"
},
"expansion": "below + stairs",
"name": "compound"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From below + stairs.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "prepositional phrase",
"head": ""
},
"expansion": "below stairs",
"name": "head"
},
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "below stairs",
"name": "en-PP"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "prep_phrase",
"senses": [
{
"antonyms": [
{
"word": "above stairs"
},
{
"word": "upstairs"
}
],
"categories": [
"English dated terms",
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1691, Thomas D’Urfey, Love for Money, or, The Boarding School, London: J. Hindmarsh and Abel Roper, act V, scene 1, page 45",
"text": "I’le lock her into her Sister’s Room below Stairs, for to night, there’s no Balcony there.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1752, William Stukeley, Memoirs of Isaac Newton's life",
"text": "it was talkd, that there was an old gentleman belowstairs whom they fancied to be Sr. Isaac Newton.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1952, Patricia Highsmith, chapter 8, in The Price of Salt, New York: Norton, published 2004, page 94",
"text": "She felt immensely superior to him suddenly, to all the people below stairs.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"On a floor lower than the one a speaker currently occupies; below the main floor of a multi-floor building."
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(dated) On a floor lower than the one a speaker currently occupies; below the main floor of a multi-floor building."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "downstairs"
}
],
"tags": [
"dated"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"British English",
"English terms with historical senses",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "a. 1631, John Donne, letter to H. Goodere, in Letters to Severall Persons of Honour written by John Donne, London: Richard Marriot, 1651, pp. 158-159,\nMy daughter Constance is at this time with me; or the emptinesse of the town, hath made me, who otherwise live upon the almes of others, a houskeeper, for a moneth; and so she is my servant below stairs, and my companion above:"
},
{
"text": "1972, Robertson Davies, The Manticore, Toronto: New Canadian Library, 2015, Part 2, Chapter 1,\nChildren always lived closer to the servants than their elders, and Caroline and I never knew where we stood with anybody, and sometimes found ourselves hostages in dark, below-stairs intrigues."
},
{
"ref": "2017 November 17, Skye Sherwin, “Chaïm Soutine’s Pastry Cook of Cagnes: a portrait of youth, but not innocence”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
"text": "Having lived the stereotype of the penniless artist in Paris, Soutine was drawn not to the glamour of the roaring 1920s, but to those in the world below stairs[.]",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"In or pertaining to the lowest levels of a large house where the house staff work and are accommodated, contrasted with above stairs where the owning family reside."
],
"links": [
[
"above stairs",
"above stairs"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(UK, historical) In or pertaining to the lowest levels of a large house where the house staff work and are accommodated, contrasted with above stairs where the owning family reside."
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"historical"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2012 September 25, Catherine Bennett, “Mrs Cameron's diary: more trouble with the plebs”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
"text": "Unless we wanted dear Simkins, given he is loyalty personified, the Queen Mother used to die of jealousy, to do the below stairs POV that \"pleb\" would be considered positively affectionate & unquestionably better than prole & actually a great improvement on Simkins?",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2023 February 11, Janan Ganesh, “After Germany's fall, which is the paragon nation?”, in FT Weekend, page 22",
"text": "A paragon must embody liberal democracy. To get its hands dirty defending it is below-stairs.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Common, vulgar."
],
"links": [
[
"Common",
"common"
],
[
"vulgar",
"vulgar"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(by extension) Common, vulgar."
],
"tags": [
"broadly"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"British English",
"English terms with historical senses"
],
"glosses": [
"The areas of a large house in which house staff work, or the staff that work there."
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(UK, historical, as noun) The areas of a large house in which house staff work, or the staff that work there."
],
"raw_tags": [
"as noun"
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"historical"
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "below-stairs"
},
{
"word": "belowstairs"
}
],
"word": "below stairs"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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