Also 5–6 Sc. stair. [f. STARE v.]
† 1. Power of seeing. Obs. rare–1.
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 583. He þat stykked vche a stare in vche steppe yȝe.
† 2. A condition of amazement, horror, admiration, etc., indicated by staring. Obs.
c. 1480. Henryson, Mor. Fables, IV. (Fox’s Confess.) xviii. Astonist all still into ane stair he stude.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, IV. ii. 58. Sche … in a stair behaldis hym for joy.
1610. Shaks., Temp., III. iii. 94. Why stand you In this strange stare?
1904. M. Hewlett, Queen’s Quair, III. iv. She was in a stare. ‘I am going to the King.’
3. An act or a habit of staring; a fixed gaze with the eyes wide open.
1700. Dryden, Pal. & Arc., III. 43. He look’d a Lion with a gloomy Stare.
1778. Miss Burney, Evelina (1791), II. 112. She cast her languishing eyes round the room with a vacant stare.
1796. Plain Sense, III. 78. With a broad stare of incomprehension, she was answered.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, ii. After bestowing a stare and a frown on me.
1855. Tennyson, Maud, I. xiii. 22. [He] gorgonised me from head to foot With a stony British stare.
1911. Galsworthy, Patrician, II. ii. 179. Unmoved by the stares of the audience, Barbara sat absorbed in moody thoughts.
b. generalized use. rare.
1785. Cowper, Task, II. 430. Avaunt all attitude, and stare, And start theatric, practised at the glass!
c. To make a stare: to make people stare, excite astonishment. † To be on the stare: to be staring.
1804. Wolcot (P. Pindar), Epist. to Ld. Mayor, Wks. 1812, V. 203. We have been upon the stare For your Address. Ibid. (1808), One More Perp at R. Acad., ibid. 359. A vulgar World delights in glare Adores whatever makes a stare.
d. Used for: The object stared at.
1753. E. Moor, in World, No. 43, ¶ 8. She never hears the word Infidel mentioned from the pulpit, without fancying herself the stare of the whole rabble of believers.
