Also rarely stairs-, stair’s-. The foot of a staircase; the level space in front of the lowest step of a flight of stairs.
1470–85. Malory, Arthur, XVIII. vii. 736. The other knyghte wente streyghte to the steyer foote where sat Kyng Arthur.
1513. More, in Grafton’s Chron. (1568), II. 804. He caused ye murtherers to bury them at the stayre foote.
1598. B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum., III. iii. Or sit in the cold at the staire-foot for her.
1667. Dryden & Dk. Newcastle, Sir M. Mar-all, V. i. The gentle Guinea … which us’d as duly to steal into our hands at the Stair-foot, as into Mr. Doctor’s at parting.
1722. De Foe, Col. Jack, xv. I waited on her then to the stairfoot.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, xliii. He had led her back to the stair-foot.
a. 1562. G. Cavendish, Wolsey (1893), 264. Whome they brought on his mewle to the stayers foote of his chamber, and ther lighted.
1757. Hist. 2 Mod. Adventurers, II. 196. Waddling to the Stairs-foot; ‘Moll, Moll,’ said she.
1868. ‘Holme Lee,’ Basil Godfrey, v. She did not hear her mother call from the stair’s-foot.
b. attrib.
1573–5. Gascoigne, Ferd. Jeronimi, Wks. 1907, I. 407. He having a large base court to passe over before he could recover his staire foote dore.
1607. Tourneur, Rev. Trag., II. iii. 10. He and the Duchesse By night meete in their linnen, they haue beene seene By staire-foote pandars!
1665. Wood, Life (O.H.S.), II. 45. For a key to the starefoot door, 8d.
