Stair vs Stile - What's the difference?
stair | stile |
A single step in a staircase.
A series of steps, a staircase.
*{{quote-book, year=1899, author=(Hughes Mearns)
, title=
, passage=Yesterday, upon the stair / I met a man who wasn’t there / He wasn’t there again today / I wish, I wish he’d go away …}}
A set of steps surmounting a fence or wall, or a narrow gate or contrived passage through a fence or wall, which in either case allows people but not livestock to pass.
* 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 4
A vertical component of a panel or frame, such as that of a door or window.
A pin set on the face of a dial, to cast a shadow; a style.
(obsolete) A mode of composition; a style.
* Bunyan
As nouns the difference between stair and stile
is that stair is a single step in a staircase while stile is a set of steps surmounting a fence or wall, or a narrow gate or contrived passage through a fence or wall, which in either case allows people but not livestock to pass.stair
English
Noun
(en noun)Usage notes
* Stairs'' and ''stair are used to refer to a single staircase, mostly interchangeably in the UK.Derived terms
* above-stairs * upstairs * downstairs * stair-stepping * staircase * stairs * stairway * stairwellSee also
* ladder * landingAnagrams
* ----stile
English
Alternative forms
* (l)Noun
(wikipedia stile) (en noun)- 'Twas very true what Greening said; for of a summer evening I would take the path that led up Weatherbeech Hill, behind the Manor; both because 'twas a walk that had a good prospect in itself, and also a sweet charm for me, namely, the hope of seeing Grace Maskew. And there I often sat upon the stile that ends the path and opens on the down, and watched the old half-ruined house below; and sometimes saw white-frocked Gracie walking on the terrace in the evening sun, and sometimes in returning passed her window near enough to wave a greeting.
- (Moxon)
- May I not write in such a stile as this?