arch. Also 5 stagard, 6–7 staggerd, 7 staggarde, 9 staggart. [f. STAG sb.1 + -ARD.]
1. A stag in its fourth year.
c. 1400. Master of Game (MS. Digby 182), ii. Þe first yere þat thei be calfede, þei be ycalle a calfe…, þe iiii. yere a stagard. Ibid., xxii. An hynde commonlyche hathe hir traces more holowe þenne a staggard or a stagge.
1576. Turberv., Venerie, 235. An hart is called the firste yeare a Calfe, the seconde a Brocket, the thirde a spayde, the fourth a Staggerd the fifth a stagge.
1782. Elphinston, Martial, I. II. xxxi. 26. The staggard [L. cervi] champs the golden bit.
1847. Marryat, Childr. N. Forest, iv. A stag is called a brocket until he is three years old; at four years he is a staggart.
1859. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., V. 517/2. At this stage he [i.e., the deer] is styled a ‘staggard.’
1891. Conan Doyle, White Company, iii. A lordly red staggard walked daintily out from among the tree-trunks.
† 2. A swan (? above one year old). Obs. rare–1.
1619. in Coates, Reading (1802), 59. Swans … the signetts at 4s. 6d. a-piece, and the staggards at 6s. a-piece.
