stag

• steg (dialectal), staig (Scotland), stagg, stagge (obsolete)

From Middle English stagge, steg, from Old English stagga, stacga (“a stag”) and Old Norse steggi, steggr (“a male animal”), both from Proto-Germanic *staggijô, *staggijaz (“male, male deer, porcupine”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *stegʰ-, *stengʰ- (“to sting; rod, blade; sharp, stiff”). Cognate with Icelandic steggi, steggur (“tomcat, male fox”). Related to staggard, staggon.

• IPA^(key): /stæɡ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æɡ

stag (countable and uncountable, plural stags)

1. (countable) An adult male deer, especially a red deer.

   Synonyms: buck, hart

2. (countable, chiefly Scotland) A young horse (colt or filly).
3. (by extension, countable, obsolete) A romping girl; a tomboy.
4. (countable) An improperly or late castrated bull or ram – also called a bull seg (see note under ox).
5. (countable, finance) An outside irregular dealer in stocks, who is not a member of the exchange.
6. (countable, finance) One who applies for the allotment of shares in new projects, with a view to sell immediately at a premium, and not to hold the stock.
7. (countable, usually attributive) An unmarried man; a bachelor; a man not accompanying a woman at a social event.

   a stag dance; a stag party; a stag bar

8. (countable) A social event for men held in honor of a groom on the eve of his wedding, attended by male friends of the groom; sometimes a fundraiser.

   Synonyms: (US) bachelor party, (UK) stag do, stag party, stag lunch

   Coordinate terms: bachelorette party, hen party

   The stag will be held in the hotel's ballroom.

9. (countable, slang) An informer.
   • 1838, [Joseph Holt], edited by T. Crofton Croker, Memoirs of Joseph Holt, General of the Irish Rebels, in 1798, volume II, London: Henry Colburn, page 52:

     We had two disturbers of the harmony of the ship; I mean two stags or informers, one named Robert Wilson, the other John Hewit, from the north of Ireland.

10. (uncountable, UK, military, slang) Guard duty.
    • 2000, Richard Tomlinson, The big breach: from top secret to maximum security, page 31:

      Between shifts on stag or manning the radio, we grabbed a few hours sleep.

    • 2012, Max Benitz, Six Months Without Sundays: The Scots Guards in Afghanistan:

      Three days were spent on standby or patrols and a fourth day on guard, with at least eight hours on stag.

11. (countable) A stag beetle (family Lucanidae).
    • 2007, Eric R. Eaton, Kenn Kaufman, Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America, page 132:

      Members of the genus Pasimachus […] can be confused with stag beetles […] but stags have elbowed antennae.

12. (countable) The Eurasian wren, Troglodytes troglodytes.

• (male red deer): royal stag, imperial stag, monarch

• bull

stag (third-person singular simple present stags, present participle stagging, simple past and past participle stagged)

1. (intransitive, British) To act as a "stag", an irregular dealer in stocks.
2. (transitive) To watch; to dog, or keep track of.

   Synonym: shadow

stag (not comparable)

1. Of a man, attending a formal social function without a date.

   My brother went stag to prom because he couldn't find a date.

• (to watch): John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary (1873)

• “stag”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• Jonathon Green (2024) “stag n.¹”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang

• ATGs, GATS, GTAs, Gast, TAGs, gast, gats, tags

stag

1. Alternative form of stagge

Inherited from Old Swedish stag, from Old Norse stag, from Proto-Germanic *stagą.

stag n

1. (nautical) a stay
2. an appliance with a function similar to a nautical stay

• stag in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• stag in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• stag in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
• stag in Svenskt nautiskt lexikon (1920)
• stag in Elof Hellquist, Svensk etymologisk ordbok (1st ed., 1922)

• gast, sagt, tags