[f. STAIR sb. + WAY sb.] A way up a flight of stairs, a staircase.

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1767.  T. Hutchinson, Hist. Mass. (1799), II. iv. 387. Officers had planted themselves at the head of the stair-way with loaded carbines.

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1847.  Prescott, Peru, IV. v. (1850), II. 339. Running down to the first landing on the stairway.

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1872.  M. Collins, P’cess Clarice, II. 92. He walked up the grim stairway of the hotel.

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1892.  J. R. Boyle, County of Durham, 261. They were reached by a stairway from the triforium.

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1906.  Marjorie Bowen, Viper of Milan, xx. It [the door] opened immediately on a black marble stairway.

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  b.  transf.

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c. 1820.  S. Rogers, Italy, Jovasse (1838), 23. His ancient carbine from his shoulder slung, His axe to hew a stair-way in the ice.

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1894.  Westm. Gaz., 1 Jan., 2/1. Here the old Duke of Bridgewater’s canal makes junction with the Ship Canal by two long stairways of locks.

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  c.  fig.

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1879.  E. Arnold, Lt. Asia, VIII. (1881), 229. Make golden stairways of your weakness.

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1886.  C. A. Briggs, Messianic Proph., i. 26. The prophets as an order of preachers and teachers constitute a grand stairway.

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1909.  Edin. Rev., July, 40. Thus the soul ranges up and down the stairway of existence.

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