stair-foot
Also rarely stairs-, stair's-.
a. The foot of a staircase; the level space in front of the lowest step of a flight of stairs.
| 1470–85 Malory Arthur xviii. vii. 736 The other knyghte wente streyghte to the steyer foote where sat Kyng Arthur. 1513 More in Grafton's Chron. (1568) II. 804 He caused ye murtherers to bury them at the stayre foote. 1598 B. Jonson Ev. Man in Hum. iii. iii, Or sit in the cold at the staire⁓foot for her. 1667 Dryden & Dk. Newcastle Sir M. Mar-all v. i, The gentle Guinea..which us'd as duly to steal into our hands at the Stair-foot, as into Mr. Doctor's at parting. 1722 De Foe Col. Jack xv, I waited on her then to the stairfoot. 1848 Dickens Dombey xliii, He had led her back to the stair-foot. |
| a 1562 G. Cavendish Wolsey (1893) 264 Whome they brought on his mewle to the stayers foote of his chamber, and ther lighted. 1757 Hist. 2 Mod. Adventurers II. 196 Waddling to the Stairs-foot; ‘Moll, Moll’, said she. 1868 ‘Holme Lee’ Basil Godfrey v, She did not hear her mother call from the stair's-foot. |
b. attrib.| 1573–5 Gascoigne Ferd. Jeronimi Wks. 1907 I. 407 He having a large base court to passe over before he could recover his staire foote dore. 1607 Tourneur Rev. Trag. ii. iii. 10 He and the Duchesse By night meete in their linnen, they haue beene seene By staire-foote pandars! 1665 Wood Life (O.H.S.) II. 45 For a key to the starefoot door, 8d. 1914 D. H. Lawrence Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd i. ii. 22 At that instant the stairfoot door opens slowly, revealing the children. |