upstay

English

Etymology

From up- +‎ stay.

Verb

upstay (third-person singular simple present upstays, present participle upstaying, simple past and past participle upstayed)

1. (now rare) To sustain, support.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     those two villeins, which her steps vpstayd, / When her weake feete could scarcely her sustaine, / And fading vitall powers gan to fade, / Her forward still with torture did constraine […]

   • 1820, The River Duddon A Series of Sonnets, XXVIII, Journey Renewed:

     Close to the vital seat of human clay; / Glad meetings, tender partings, that upstay

   • 1910, The Aeneid of Virgil as translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor:

     In front, a massive gateway threats the sky, / And posts of solid adamant upstay / An iron tower, firm-planted to defy / All force, divine or human. Night and day,

   • 1917, Henry Charles Beeching, The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse, 246, The Tree of Life

     Lighten, O sword divine, to clear my way, / And thou, O happy heart, upstay

Anagrams

• stay up