vbl. sb. Also 9 stageing. [f. STAGE sb. and v. + -ING1.]
1. concr. a. A temporary platform or structure of posts and boards for support; scaffolding.
1323–4. Ely Sacr. Rolls (1907), II. 47. In xxiij arboribus de sapin empt. pro stagyngg 2l. 8s. 0d.
1390–1. in W. Hudson, Leet Jurisd. Norwich (Selden Soc.), 70. Rogerus Smyth depredavit c latthis de Herveo Skott et maremium et stagyngg murorum Civitatis.
1521. Bury Wills (Camden), 122. For a beme and stagyng in ye chyrche, vij s.
1835–6. P. Barlow, in Encycl. Metrop. (1845), VIII. 87/1. A stageing is erected about seven feet above the deck.
1842. Niles’ Reg., LXIII. 169/2. Governor Metcalfe appeared upon a staging erected upon the capitol steps, and returned his thanks.
1883. Law Rep., 11 Q. B. Div. 503. He supplied and put up the staging necessary to enable the outside of the vessel to be painted and repaired when in the dock.
1884. Manch. Exam., 7 Oct., 5/1. At the mass meetings … two of the stagings gave way.
attrib. 1535. in Willis & Clark, Cambridge (1886), II. 453. Oon load of stagyng tymber.
1912. Sir Hugh Clifford, in Blackw. Mag., Sept., 354/2. The slow waters of the river, purring around the stays and staging-piles, refracted the sun-rays with a blinding intensity.
b. Arch. The stages of a buttress collectively.
1865. Athenæum, No. 1942. 57/3. Mediæval buttresses with their stagings.
2. † a. The action of mounting a stage. Obs.
1670. Eachard, Cont. Clergy, 39. If getting into the pulpit were a kind of staging, where nothing was to be considered, but how much the sermon takes, and how much star’d at.
b. The action, process or art of putting a play on the stage; stage-setting.
1884. Sat. Rev., 12 July, 48. Twelfth Night … was as brilliant and well ordered a piece of staging.
1884. Times (weekly ed.), 26 Sept., 6/1. The staging of a play is in itself a work of true art.
1901. Skrine, Life Sir W. W. Hunter, xviii. 380. He did full justice to the staging [of ‘Faust’], which was then unsurpassed in London.
3. The business of running or managing stage-coaches; the action of travelling by stage-coach or by stages. Also attrib. (Chiefly Anglo-Indian.)
1850. Ogilvie.
1854. Househ. Words, VIII. 367/2. A Dawk bungalow, or, as it is called officially, a staging bungalow.
1896. Sir R. Temple, Story My Life, I. 29. Halting in the hot hours of daylight, generally in the solitude of staging rest-houses.
1912. C. H. Buck, in Chamb. Jrnl., Christmas No. 18/2. I jolted along in an old dak ghari (staging-carriage) to my destination.
