adv., sb., and a. [UP prep.2 1, 7.]
A. adv. 1. So as to ascend a fight of stairs; to the floor at the top of a staircase.
Stressed u·pstairs when contrasted with downstairs.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. iv. 112. His industry is vp-staires and down-staires, his eloquence the parcell of a reckoning.
1658. E. Phillips, Myst. Love & Eloquence, 75. Up stairs we nimbly creep, And find the Sluts asleep.
1661. in Jamieson, Sc. Dict., s.v. Breadberry, Tripping up stares and down stares with a posset or berry for the laird or lady.
1722. De Foe, Plague (1896), 127. Some [running] down stairs and some up stairs.
1767. Woman of Fashion, I. 244. Shew the Lady up Stairs.
1797. S. & Ht. Lee, Canterb. T. (1799), I. 152. He abruptly walked up stairs, and … opened the door.
1839. Dickens, Nickleby, lxii. He made his way up stairs into the room.
1876. T. Hardy, Ethelberta, vii. I think that after the women had gone upstairs the others turned their thoughts upon you again.
b. fig. (See KICK v. 5 b.)
c. 1697. Burnet, Orig. Mem. (1902), 145. He [Halifax] had said he had known many kicked down stairs, but he never knew any kicked up stairs before.
1821. [see KICK v. 5 b].
2. At the top of, on a floor or in a room reached by, a flight of stairs; in one of the upper stories of a house.
1781. Cowper, Table-T., 151. To be the Table Talk of clubs up stairs.
1796–7. Jane Austen, Pride & Prej., lv. Her mother … was sitting up stairs with Kitty.
1844. Kinglake, Eöthen, xvi. It is upstairs—on the first floor.
1882. Miss Braddon, Mt. Royal, III. ii. 28. You would rather dine upstairs, I dare say.
b. quasi-sb.
1842. Lover, Handy Andy, xiv. The ogre’s voice from upstairs.
1898. Watts-Dunton, Aylwin, XII. iii. As I spoke I heard a noise…. It seemed to come from upstairs.
c. As sb. An upper story or floor. Also transf., a person or persons living on an upper floor.
1884. in Proc. Soc. Psychical Research, Dec. (1885), 329. I was … present on the day when Mr. Coulomb gave the charge of the upstairs to our party.
1896. Westm. Gaz., 23 April, 2/3. The magistrate could not discriminate whether upstairs or down-stairs began [the fight].
B. adj. 1. Situated on an upper story or at the top of a flight of steps.
1782. Jrnl. Yng. Lady of Virginia (1871), 46. Last night Nancy had a fire made up in one of the up-stairs rooms.
1850. Household Words, I. 206/1. In upstairs Infirmary wards.
1879. Mrs. A. E. James, Ind. Househ. Managem., 35. A bungalow has rarely any upstairs rooms.
b. Belonging to, connected with, the upper rooms or parts of a house.
1839. Hood, On Completing Forty-Seven, iv. I hear the up-stairs bell.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xvi. At the usual hour … the upstairs maid knocked at the door of the … bedchamber.
1894. Eliz. L. Banks, Camp. Curiosity, 10. The upstairs duties of a first-class lodging-house.
2. Having more than one story.
1840. E. E. Napier, Scenes & Sports For. Lands, II. v. 163. Old B— possessed one of the few up-stairs houses in the cantonment, in the lower part of which he had his shop.
