stay put

stay ¹  (st)

v. stayed, stay·ing, stays

v.intr.

1. To continue to be in a place or condition: stay home; stay calm.

2. To remain or sojourn as a guest or lodger: stayed at a motel.

3. To stop moving; halt.

4. To wait; pause.

5. To endure or persist: stayed with the original plan.

6. To keep up in a race or contest: tried to stay with the lead runner.

7. Games To meet a bet in poker without raising it.

8. To stand one's ground; remain firm.

9. Archaic To cease from a specified activity.

v.tr.

1. To stop or halt; check.

2. To postpone; delay.

3. To delay or stop the effect of (an order, for example) by legal action or mandate: stay a prisoner's execution.

4. To satisfy or appease temporarily: stayed his anger.

5. To remain during: stayed the week with my parents; stayed the duration of the game.

6. To wait for; await: "I will not stay thy questions. Let me go;/Or if thou follow me, do not believe/But I shall do thee mischief in the wood" (Shakespeare).

n.

1. The act of halting; check.

2. The act of coming to a halt.

3. A brief period of residence or visiting.

4. A suspension or postponement of a legal action or an execution: granted a stay to the prisoner's execution.

Idioms:

stay put

To remain in a fixed or established position.

stay the course

To hold out or persevere to the end of a race or challenge.

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[Middle English steien, from Old French ester, esteir, from Latin stre; see st- in Indo-European roots.]

Synonyms: stay¹, remain, wait, abide, tarry¹, linger, sojourn
These verbs mean to continue to be in a given place. Stay is the least specific, though it can also suggest that the person involved is a guest or visitor: "Must you go? Can't you stay?" (Charles J. Vaughan).
Remain often implies continuing or being left after others have gone: I remained at the end of the meeting to talk to the speaker.
Wait suggests remaining in readiness, anticipation, or expectation: "Your father is waiting for me to take a walk with him" (Booth Tarkington).
Abide implies continuing for a lengthy period: "Abide with me" (Henry Francis Lyte).
Tarry and linger both imply a delayed departure, but linger more strongly suggests reluctance to leave: "She was not anxious but puzzled that her husband tarried" (Eden Phillpotts). "I alone sit lingering here" (Henry Vaughan).
To sojourn is to reside temporarily in a place: "He was sojourning at [a] hotel in Bond Street" (Anthony Trollope). See Also Synonyms at defer¹.

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stay ²  (st)

tr.v. stayed, stay·ing, stays

1. To brace, support, or prop up.

2. To strengthen or sustain mentally or spiritually.

3. To rest or fix on for support.

n.

1. A support or brace.

2. A strip of bone, plastic, or metal, used to stiffen a garment or part, such as a corset or shirt collar.

3. stays A corset.

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[Middle English staien, from Old French estaiier, from estaie, a support, of Germanic origin.]

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stay ³  (st)

n.

1. Nautical A heavy rope or cable, usually of wire, used as a brace or support for a mast or spar.

2. A rope used to steady, guide, or brace.

tr. & intr.v. stayed, stay·ing, stays Nautical

To put (a ship) on the opposite tack or to come about.

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[Middle English, from Old English stæg.]

Thesaurus

Verb

1.

stay put - stay put (in a certain place); "We are staying in Detroit; we are not moving to Cincinnati"; "Stay put in the corner here!"; "Stick around and you will learn something!" stay, stick, stick around stay in place - be stationary