stayed

Stayed is the past tense and past participle of the English verb stay. It denotes having remained somewhere, or having caused something to remain in a place or state. It can also mean that an action has been paused or delayed, such as suspending a court ruling or an ongoing process.

As a regular verb, stayed forms its simple past and past participle as stayed; the present participle is staying, and the third-person singular present form is stays. It combines with auxiliary verbs to form perfect tenses: she has stayed, they had stayed. It is typically transitive or intransitive depending on context: stay at home is intransitive, whereas stay the execution is transitive with an object.

Common uses include remaining in a location (staying at a hotel, staying in a city); delaying or pausing actions, especially in legal contexts (to stay a judgment or to stay a proceeding); and in idiomatic phrases such as stay put or stay in place. In everyday speech, stayed can describe a completed action in the past or a continuing state up to the present in perfect tenses.

Example sentences: She stayed with relatives for a week. The judge stayed the sentence pending appeal. The team has stayed on schedule despite earlier delays. They have stayed in the city for several weeks.

Etymology: the verb originates in Old English and has Germanic roots, with cognates in other Germanic languages. The senses related to remaining and delaying developed early in the language’s history and remain productive in modern English.