stad

Stad is a Germanic noun meaning city, town, or urban locality. It appears in several languages with related meanings, most prominently in Dutch and Afrikaans, where stad is the standard word for “city.”

In Dutch, stad is the everyday word for a city. In Afrikaans, stad carries the same meaning and is used in place names such as Kaapstad (Cape Town). In Swedish, stad is the common term for city or town and appears in compounds like huvudstad, meaning “capital city.” In Norwegian and Danish, stad is a cognate form used in more formal or historical contexts; Danish, however, often uses by for city, while hovedstaden is used for the capital.

Etymology and cognates: stad derives from Proto-Germanic *staþą, meaning “place” or “site,” and is related to Old English sted and the English stead in sense of a location or site.

Usage notes: in modern writing, stad is frequently found in place names, official terms, and formal discourse across the languages that share the word. It denotes urban settlements rather than political entities, except when used in compound forms such as “hovedstad” to indicate a capital city.